Flicker
by Phenax
Summary: After a century of laying in a coffin, with a dagger in his heart put there by someone he should've been able to trust, Kol never in his wildest dreams imagined who would be the one to pull the dagger from his chest. It was something he never could've prepared himself for. Starts after Season 3, Episode 9: Homecoming. Kol/OC
1. 00: Best Served Dead

"Don't wanna be

No one but me.

You are moving through the crowd,

Trying to find yourself.

Feeling like a doll left on a shelf.

Will someone take you down?

And you ask yourself,

'Who do I wanna be?

Do I wanna throw away the key

And invent a whole new me?'"

* * *

We were all completely blindsided.

What had started as a crazy night, which might end with all of our problems finally being put to rest, became something much different, something we were left without explanation.

He was supposed to die. All the effort and work that went into the plan, all the backstabbing that had to be done to make it happen, it was all for nothing.

The only answer we had was that everything we had done was for nothing. Klaus was still alive.

As I laid in bed that fateful night, my mind wouldn't stop working in overdrive, thinking through each and every step we had taken, but I couldn't find the step that was wrong, that ended with the epic failure of our plan.

Stefan wanted him dead more than anyone else. He hated him, hated being under his compulsion, and he blamed him for everything that had happened since the day he left Mystic Falls.

So why did he get in our way?

Everyone was distressed. We all spent the next day sulking, with the feeling of defeat keeping us locked in our homes.

Would he finally be out of our lives, though? He had spent so long running for his father, and now that Mikael was dead, he could start a life somewhere.

That was a stupid thought—of course he wasn't going anywhere. He had his family, aside from his sister who I'm sure he would find eventually, but more than his family, he wanted an army of hybrids. To create that army, he needed the blood of a Petrova doppelgänger.

That just so happened to be my sister, my twin sister to be exact. We were identical in almost every way, with the same wide, round shape of our eyes and the same chestnut brown iris on the right one. Where we first differed was the left eye color—Elena was fortunate, and her eyes were both the same. Mine weren't. At first, my parents hoped that I would develop pigment in the left eye, but after the doctor looked at it, he told them that I wouldn't. It was both a mixture of partial albinism, ocular albinism to be exact, and heterochromia.

That was why my skin wasn't the same tawny color of hers, as if the sun itself had wrapped its warm glow around what was the natural tan of her skin. She was stunning in so many ways, and I had always been the weird looking one of the two of us; two different eye colors, an extremely pale color in comparison to Elena's, with a silver glow that resembled that of the moon.

It was the same story with my hair. I wasn't fully albino, so instead of being the warm, rich brown of Elena's hair, mine was a dull ash brown, though it helped hide how pale my skin was.

Everything else was the same, down to the exact same lip shape, with a slightly bigger bottom lip and an arched upper lip, and the same nose shape—we believed we were identical twins whose albinism and heterochromia worked differently. We also thought that our parents were our biological parents, but that was proven false as well.

Everything we had once thought we knew about ourselves was turned upside, but in typical Mystic Falls fashion, we didn't get the chance to grieve about it, to try and figure things out. Too much happened at the same time, and we were left with an afterthought.

Just when we thought we had it figured out, however, things took another turn. In an attempt to rid the town of vampires, including the ones we all cared about, the man who Elena and I had once thought our uncle, who we had just recently discovered to be our biological father, turned on a device, known as the Gilbert device, which would incapacitate any vampires within a certain radius while it was on.

No one knew it would also incapacitate anyone with the werewolf curse in their bloodline, whether the curse was triggered or not; so the mayor ended up dead, Tyler almost killed Caroline after falling unconscious and running the car they were in off the road, and I found myself in a basement full of unconscious vampires. One of my friends, a rather sadistic vampire who I had grown to care about despite all that he had done and would probably continue to do, was down there as well, and he was confused by the fact that the mayor and me ended up down there.

John knew I wasn't a vampire, and even if I was, he thought I was his daughter. He didn't hate vampires so much that he would kill his own daughter, so he got me out.

It took a little bit more digging to realize that I wasn't his daughter, and Elena, who I had always known as my identical twin sister, was only my half-sister.

Life became complicated for a while. We learned about the werewolf curse, learned that it was the reason Tyler crashed the car, the reason Mayor Lockwood fell unconscious when the Gilbert device went off, and the reason I did as well.

We tried to piece together a timeline of Elena and my birth, to figure out who else our mother could've been with that might be my father, but the only werewolves we knew were the Lockwoods. Richard was off at college around the time Isobel got pregnant, but even if he hadn't been, or if his brother Mason had been in town at that time, they couldn't have been my father. Along with the werewolf curse, I was also a witch, and they weren't.

The isolation that followed was hard. Elena tried to be there for me, but she couldn't understand trying to go through life, with emotions that flared up so easily, to go through life with everyone mocking you behind your back because your eyes were different colors, because you were so pale and ugly compared to your almost identical sister. Everything I had known was different, even if our friends were the same.

Not only was I a witch, which should've been the first clue we were only half-siblings since Elena wasn't, but I was also a werewolf. At least I had the werewolf curse in my blood, and if I killed anyone, it was off to turning for me.

When Klaus first came to town, after hearing of the doppelgänger that lived in Mystic Falls, it became everyone's mission to ensure he didn't find out I existed at all. We weren't really sure if I was a doppelgänger, since I didn't look exactly like the Petrova women, but on the chance that I was, they didn't want Klaus to know.

They tried to make me leave town, through begging, screaming, failed attempts at compulsion—I reminded Damon that I was a witch, albeit a weak one, and witches can't be compelled.

Their desire to make sure Klaus never found out about me almost got Elena killed. It got John killed, and he told me that even if I wasn't his daughter, he watched me grow up believing that I was, that he loved me just as much as he loved Elena.

That was the last thing he said to me before his life essence left his body and went to find Elena, before she could wake up in transition.

After Damon fed Elena and I both his blood, Elena insisted that she be the one to go. If someone was going to wake up as a vampire, it needed to be her, as we didn't even know what might happen with the werewolf blood I had. I didn't wanna go along with that, but Bonnie kept me at the Salvatore's, with a barrier spell she thought would hold until the end of the night.

It didn't, and at the time, I couldn't understand what it was I had done, why I could suddenly feel so much power in my veins. All I had done was press my hands against the barrier spell, and they began to glow red, which I had never seen happen before. They glowed until suddenly, the magic from the barrier spell was gone, and I didn't realize it at the time, but I had consumed it. It had become fuel for my own power.

That was something we couldn't explain. I went from thinking that I was just extremely weak to finding out that I wasn't actually pulling magic from nature. Any time I tried to use a spell, I was pulling it out of my own blood, without even realizing it. I was a witch who couldn't pull power from nature, and when I didn't know that, I was weak because of it. After I did, no one allowed me to practice with more magic, so I remained weak.

Even after it all changed, after the safety of my sister and me was compromised, no one wanted to help me learn what I was doing.

After Stefan left town with Klaus, it was only a matter of time before Klaus found out I existed as well. Stefan loved Elena, and he loved me like one might love their girlfriend's sister, but that was all I was to him: someone Elena cared about.

If it meant protecting Elena over me, he would in a heartbeat, unless Elena asked him to choose me. He'd hate every second of it, but he would.

Damon would've struggled to choose, but it was because he loved us both. He was deeply in love with Elena, but he loved me in a much different way. To him, I was his little sister, and losing me would truly be as hard on him as losing Elena or Stefan.

In such a short time, we had become so important to one another, and sometimes, I trusted him more than I trusted Elena. It worked the same both ways. Sometimes, he just couldn't talk to Stefan about the things he could talk to me about, and we became the best of friends, even if the rest of my friends hated him.

Damon was a vampire who learned to cope with all the horrible things vampires do by learning to just accept it. There were probably times he sat there and let the guilt come creeping in, but most times, he didn't think twice about what he did, never hesitated to act.

That also got him in trouble sometimes.

This plan hadn't been one of his brash, violent decisions. It had been well thought out, without room for error. Elena daggered Rebekah in the back to ensure no siblings got in the way this time.

A sibling _had_ , though.

Once Klaus killed Elena to remove the curse his mother put on him, to keep his hybrid side dormant, we figured that it didn't matter if he found out about me. Stefan left town with him, and I figured it would probably come up—"Oh, by the way, there are possibly two doppelgängers." If not from him, surely Elijah would tell him, even if he _had_ given me his word that he wouldn't.

Elijah didn't get the chance to tell him. Klaus daggered him and put him in a coffin with the rest of his siblings.

Stefan was the only other person around Klaus who knew I existed. It probably never really came up, but until Stefan and Klaus came to town, the night of senior prank night, Klaus was shocked when I walked into the gym behind Elena, that being the grand reveal that potentially two Petrova doppelgängers were alive and well.

That was also the night we learned that doppelgänger blood was needed to complete the transition of hybrids. What was meant to be a loophole, ensuring that even if Klaus broke the curse, he wouldn't be able to create hybrids, ended up working against nature—he had _two_ blood sources to feed them from now, if my blood was, in fact, the blood of a doppelgänger.

Of course, he had to test it out, and it turned out that I was, in fact, a doppelgänger. When he realized that, it was how we learned that I hadn't been pulling my magic from nature ever. It had always been the power within my blood, and I was weak because it was limited, even if doppelgänger blood _was_ the most powerful binding source for any spell. I was still a human.

We thought he would kill one of us for a time, but he insisted that he liked the idea of having two, in case something tragic were to happen to one. He would often remark that he believed Elena would be turned before the end of her senior year, so he needed me for when that happened.

The secret about my magic, about my werewolf blood, was more crucial to keep than ever. If he knew, with his search for werewolves to make hybrids from expanding all across the world, he wouldn't hesitate to make me a werewolf, and then I would end up sired like the rest of them.

I didn't want to be sired, not to Klaus. The idea of being a hybrid had always appealed to me, since I never really figured out how to do much with my magic. Any time I would try and practice, everyone would remind me that anyone knowing about my magic was dangerous, that I shouldn't even bother. They would remind me that no one knew anything about what I could do, that it was dangerous if kept unchecked, so I had to stop around people.

Some nights, I would hide under the covers and practice lighting a candle. What seemed simple to witches, such as Bonnie, was incredible to me.

The most powerful thing I had done so far was perform a locator spell on Elena, when she was in her room asleep. The proximity might've had something to do with how easy it was, or maybe it was easy because I was her twin sister, because I was fueling my spell with the magic from my blood.

The front door slammed downstairs, and I was on my feet and running in that direction in an instant.

Elena had been the only one who had the desire to leave the house, only because she mentioned Bonnie needing to talk to her about something. Klaus knew I existed, but with his hunt for werewolves becoming more prominent in his life, they wanted to keep me indoors as much as possible.

How long would it be until I accidentally hit someone with my car?

In this town, anything could happen at any time, so going out was never really a good idea for me, at least while Klaus was in town.

Truthfully, I didn't want to trigger my curse, not without knowing I was going to be a hybrid. Until we knew how to break the sire bond hybrids had towards Klaus, I couldn't do that either.

Basically, nature wanted to ensure that the Petrova doppelgänger line continued by making me the hardest person to make immortal. Aside from being bound to Klaus, I would lose what little magic I had.

Immortality just wasn't in the cards for me, no matter how much I wanted it to be.

After years of seeing the spitting image of what I would look like without my genetic disorders in my sister, it had become normal, something that didn't even make me flinch anymore. When Katherine came into the picture, it was a bit weird for me, seeing what _should've_ been Elena and me, but it wasn't because I was only her half-sister, not her identical twin like we had once believed.

Her face was flustered, flushed with pinks that stained her high cheekbones. There was something frantic about the gleam in her eye, her fast-paced movement into the room. She didn't even notice me at first.

It was easy to miss someone standing at the top of the stairwell. The dark wooden stairs to the home that we had lived in our whole lives went up for a few stairs and then took a sharp left the rest of the way up.

Though my feet were only covered with thin socks, they stomped down onto the wood. The normally loud sound was muffled, barely audible to me. The only reason Elena noticed was because she happened to look up at me as I turned the corner.

"We have a _big_ problem, Darcy."

That was me: Darcy Katherine Gilbert. What had been a hint of modern mixed with the classic name like Katherine became rather horrible the moment Katherine Pierce came to town, came in and destroyed our lives in her typical Katherine Pierce way.

Honestly, I had contemplated changing my middle name, but that was senseless since it'd change when I got married anyways.

"Problem?" With Elena's attention, I no longer had to attempt to stomp my way down the stairs, so my steps quickened. "What's going on?"

She waited until I was on the ground level to speak, only after folding her arms over her chest. "Klaus didn't leave town."

" _What_?!"

"It gets worse." She took a deep breath. "Stefan has gone crazy. He's-He's gotten the freedom he wanted, so what does he decide to do with it? He decides that it's a good idea to piss off Klaus, after just barely getting out alive."

"Piss him off?" I asked, but just the idea was horrifying. It was a good thing I wasn't mayor or sheriff because hearing that would've had me evacuating the city—Klaus can't get angry and kill innocent people if there are no innocent people around. "What did he do?"

"You remember that we mentioned that Klaus travels with the things that matter most to him at all times?"

It felt good to feel _something_ again besides the empty sense of worthlessness that came after failing to kill Klaus, once again. How many times had we tried now?

Admittedly, it was only twice, but they had been our only shots. Bonnie no longer had access to the kind of magic that it would take to kill Klaus, as he was much stronger than he ever was, and the one weapon that could kill him had been burned up when he stabbed his father with it.

Even if feeling fear and anger—how could Stefan be so stupid to think that he could piss off Klaus and live again?—was what it took to feel, I was okay with that. I'd felt empty for far too long, just recently being able to pull myself out of the rut I'd fallen into.

When Stefan left and Elena needed her sister, that was all the pull I needed to get off my ass and make the decision that it didn't matter whose blood was in my veins. I was Darcy Gilbert, and the choices I made, the way I chose to be and act in life, were the only things that got to decide who I was.

I nodded. "Of course."

"He decided it'd be a good idea to steal those things," she said.

"What?!"

"Klaus didn't say what he stole, only that he did. He's out of his mind! We now have to find Stefan and whatever it was he stole, or Klaus is going to kill us and everyone we've ever spoken to."

* * *

 **A/N: Hey everyone! Phenax here. :) So it's been a long time since I've posted anything anywhere, after having my son and all. I stopped writing for a while but got back into it almost a year or so ago. After that, it became writing that no one ever saw, except my little sister. Today, I was working on chapter 19 for this story and realized that it's time to get back into publishing stuff online, even if it is just fanfiction. How can I ever reach my dream of publishing a book if I never even get things like my fanfiction out there?**

 **So without further ado, here is my new Vampire Diaries story, _Flicker_. I hope you guys enjoy it! I'm having a lot of fun writing it, and I'm learning to write better along the way. I still have a ways to go, different ways to improve, but I hope you enjoy it anyways.**

 **The lyrics at the beginning of the chapter are from the song _No One_ by Aly & AJ.**


	2. 01: Curiosity Killed the Twin

"I don't like we've all been born afraid.

Are we gonna make our great escape?

I feel alive, but I feel ashamed . . .

. . . I don't like a story without a real good twist.

You know, there's evil in this world we can't control.

So let the punches roll."

* * *

Caroline was now eighteen, at least legally. According to her, she was forever stuck at a filler age, and that was fine. We all agreed to let her mourn her "filler" life, so instead of throwing her a birthday party, we threw her a funeral.

The old Caroline was dead, and the new one was . . . well, she nearly died, too. After making out with Tyler, despite the fact that we all knew he was dangerous while sired to Klaus, she got bitten. Of course Klaus was a solution to the problem, and when Caroline told him that she didn't want to die, he healed her.

Her birthday funeral we planned came far too close to being an actual funeral.

At least today was better, and by better, I really just mean not deadly, for now. We made it through the school day without imminent danger looming at each turn.

Now, it was just sitting in front of me, in the form of four coffins that Stefan had stolen from Klaus.

Stefan had warned Bonnie about bringing anyone else into this, but she knew that he would trust me, at least. Elena had a bad habit of making choices that affected everyone else on her own, and before I did things like that, I usually thought it through.

While stealing from Klaus wasn't a good idea, there was a reason he wanted all of these coffins, and since one was sealed shut, I didn't imagine it had anything to do with his family at all.

Bonnie told me about her dreams of four coffins, sitting in the very spot Stefan had them waiting for Bonnie to arrive. She was very busy at school, however, with recent events causing us all to get behind. For me, getting caught up was easy, but Bonnie was struggling a bit more.

So here I was, keeping guard of the coffins while Stefan talked with someone on the phone—I imagined Damon, since he was still trying to convince Stefan to tell him where he was and tell him what he was up to—and Bonnie made her way over here. There wasn't much I could do to the hybrids, with my lack of practice, but maybe I could use the magic in their blood to slow them down until Stefan could get back to kill them.

Stefan warned me what he would do if I told anyone else where the coffins were, or even what was in them, but I assured him I would keep it to myself. Whoever Stefan was right now, I wasn't going to dare cross him, not when I might end up dead if I did.

That would've been such a stupid way for me to die.

It was the reason I was here to begin with, Stefan's new personality that is. Bonnie didn't trust him, not alone, so even though I wasn't strong with my magic, she brought along her best friend who was a witch as well, the one person who might stand some semblance of a chance against Stefan if he snapped. Since that also means that I can't be compelled no matter what, Stefan agreed that I could come along.

When I got here, he mentioned that it had a lot to do with my sound judgment, my ability to make the best choice in a situation even if it meant someone had to die. Elena would put everyone in danger trying to save one person, but I could see a different solution, one that might end with death.

I wondered if he would feel that way if he knew about that drunken night with Damon. Stefan was very vocal about the fact that Elena and I could both do so much better than either of them, so if he knew about the night I got drunk and lost my virginity to a man I considered to be a brother, would he still believe that I had good sense in me?

Sometimes, I didn't believe that, but it didn't have anything to do with sleeping with Damon. Sure, he slept with tons of people, but that didn't mean I had any reason to regret what I had done. The first time was out of the way, and it just so happened to be with someone who I trusted to be careful with me, someone who did everything in his power to make sure he didn't hurt me.

I later found out that he slept with me, hoping that he could let go of his feelings for Elena and maybe fall in love with me, but it was to no avail. I told him that was probably a good thing; I just didn't see him that way.

My fingers tapped against the screen on my phone as I moved a card across the screen. Something that had become habit, for no real reason other than boredom, was completing all the daily challenges on the Solitaire game on my phone. The dailies were always a single game of each of the five types of Solitaire, of varying degrees of difficulty.

They were never really challenging, even on expert difficulties, but it usually gave me something to do while I sat around, waiting for something to happen.

Today was different. Today, I finished my games and stared at the glossy coffins with nothing more to do.

My eyes moved between the four coffins, and it occurred to me that I didn't actually know what they all looked like. Of course, I had met Elijah when he first came to town looking for Elena, and he liked me enough that he never once told his brother about me. Then there was Rebekah, who Elena very openly hated—I imagine that Rebekah was going to do the same once she finally had the dagger removed from her back—but I had different feelings for her than my sister, and it worked the same for her.

She admitted that she hadn't liked the Petrova doppelgängers of the past, as they always had a way of dividing her brothers, but I was an exception. She said something about my quirks, the things that made me different from the others, only helped her feel differently towards me.

Stefan mentioned that the coffin at the head of the three that were lying flat on the ground, while the one at the head was raised up on some stands, wouldn't open, and that was why he had Bonnie coming out here—that, and he needed her to figure out a way to hide them. He asked me if I knew anything that could be done, and I reminded him that I wasn't allowed to practice magic.

That didn't mean I didn't study it, and _yes_ , there were cloaking spells that could be done, but they wouldn't work the way he needed them to work. Bonnie might not even be able to put a spell on all of them, and even if she could, there was no way to know she would be strong enough to put one that would hold, even if she _did_ come from a powerful witch bloodline.

The one that couldn't be opened wasn't the one that had my attention, not now anyways. When I first got here, before Stefan disappeared, he had me try and pull the magic away, but for whatever reason, the magic that I could usually feel flowing smoothly into my veins felt like trying to get liquid from a rock. There wasn't actually a way for me to open it, not by simply taking the spell off.

The coffins on the ground, one with Elijah and the other two with people I had never seen before, were where my eyes stopped, and they stayed there while the thoughts inside my head swirled.

Every time I took a deep breath, I was reminded that this room was in the middle of an old abandoned house, where hundreds of witches were burned centuries ago. As if the eerie feeling of the lingering spirits of a hundred dead witches wasn't reminder enough, the dust in the air that got me choked up if I inhaled too much didn't let me forget for even a second, with the sunlight through the windows acting as the only light source.

That was the smell that lingered, dust and old wood. Everything smelled _empty_.

It wasn't empty, though. There were four coffins, three of which had the daggered bodies of three Original vampires.

Elena always told me that my curiosity would be the death of me one day, but I couldn't help it. It would probably always get the better of me, and this was no exception.

What did those other two look like?

I stood up from my place on the dusty ground and went for the one on the far left, wasting no time at all. It was only a matter of time before Stefan showed back up, and if he found me looking inside, there was no telling what he'd do.

The man I found lying inside the single coffin I opened was dead, or at least that was how he looked. His skin was almost a silver-grey, with each and every vein, but even dead, this man was quite handsome. His hair was the same rich brown as Elijah's, though it wasn't long and in his face like Elijah's always had been.

How long had this one been daggered? His clothes were from a different time, though not so different that he seemed from centuries ago.

Why was it fair that Klaus have this power over his siblings without them having the power to do the same to him?

The first time I held one of the daggers, the weight of them surprised me. The spiral metal that wrapped around the handle seemed like it would make the long, silver dagger unbalanced, but it didn't.

The metal of the handle was cold to the touch, cold enough that my hand flinched back for just a moment. It wasn't long enough that I stopped to think about what I was doing, only let myself prepare to feel the cold touch again.

Whenever the daggers were inserted into an Original or pulled back out, there was a sickly sound that went along with it, the sound of tearing flesh. For vampires, their bodies had probably healed around the dagger, so it had to be ripped back out for them to completely heal and bring them back to life.

How often did Klaus do this to them?

With the dagger in my hand, I moved over to the next coffin. The man inside was far more surprising, as his attire definitely resembled a man from centuries ago, more than just one. His brown hair, the same color as Elijah and the other brother, was long and fell in waves, while his face was a more square shape.

There was a sound behind me, and my heart almost stopped in my chest. My body seemed to work on instinct, pulling magic away from my blood in order to incapacitate whoever might be behind me.

Two whiskey brown eyes, tightened at the corners, looked back at me by the time I turned around, set on a face that was tilted ever so slightly to the side.

The man standing there, no longer dead, made even my protective instincts forget that I didn't know him at all. Seeing him up and standing, the soft angled jawline centered with an almost button nose. There was just the slightest dimple in his chin, which rested just underneath a pair of soft pink lips.

The pale hunter green button up he wore, topped with a dark vest, only accented his thin but muscled shoulders, clinging to the more obvious muscles that rippled up his arms. His shoulders were pulled back, giving off an air of dignity that was a distinguishing feature of the Original family. After all that they had lived through and seen, they were probably considered nobility at some point in history. They had even proven that they had written parts of history, leaving behind "Aztec drawings" that ensured Klaus got everything he needed to break the curse his mother had put on him centuries ago.

He stood tall, quite a bit taller than me. With the brown wedge boots I was wearing, my eyes were level with his chin.

After a few moments of tense eye contact, the corners of his eyes softened, as did the muscles in his shoulders. It was as if he just flipped a switch, and everything in his body just relaxed.

"Who are you?"

The accent wasn't all that surprising; Klaus and Rebekah both shared an accent, from somewhere in the European region, but this brother had a distinctively different one, almost as if he had just stepped out of Sydney, not a coffin.

"Darcy," I managed to slip through trembling lips.

He tore his gaze from me to look around the room, and his jawline began to lock. "Where am I?"

"Mystic Falls—long story about the exact location," I said. He hadn't torn into my throat yet, and something about that relaxed me, enough that I was able to talk to him now and stop trembling. "One of my friends stole your brother's coffins to get revenge on him. I was curious, decided you probably didn't deserve to be daggered, and here you are."

The lids of his eyes opened further for a brief moment, his stare finding me again in that same moment. "I'm . . . terribly sorry, but I need blood."

"Right." Sanity didn't exist in this room, not for this brief moment while I interacted with this Original vampire who I didn't even know by name. There was a dagger in my hand, with a point at the end just barely sharp enough to pierce my skin. It had worn down after being shoved into the bodies of all the Originals for centuries, so significant pressure had to be applied to draw any blood at all. Once it started, it pooled in the palm of my hand, coming out as if I had just struck oil. I began to extend my hand out towards him, but seeing the veins around his eyes darken as the whites of his eyes grew red and two fangs began extending themselves out—this was the vampire face I had learned well over the past year—slapped at least some piece of sanity inside. "Wait. You're not the one I've heard stories about being a homicidal maniac, are you?"

The veins around his eyes lightened, though hints of darkness still remained as the fangs began to slide back behind his lips, which were set into a ghost of a smile. "Yes."

"Oh." The cool air around me burned my eyes as they widened, my vision blurring as they watered on instinct. "Well, shit."

"I promise I'll be careful."

Every logical piece of me knew that trusting him was stupid, reckless, but I did. While his eyes continued to graze across my body, taking in more about my appearance than even I could probably see, I allowed my hand to reach back out, pulling the vampire back out onto his face.

His lips were as soft as they looked as they pressed against the skin of my palm, his tongue running just underneath the open wound so he could suck in every drop he could get without sinking his teeth into my skin. I appreciated that, as bite marks would've been hard to explain.

The way he held my hand, the way he had his lips pressed against it, it was as if he was kissing my hand. The social tradition that even he must've known was to kiss the back of someone's hand, but that wasn't what he was doing, just what it felt like.

My hand was ripped away from his lips faster than I prepared for, his eyes returning back to their normal state. Not a hint of the monster lingered, even as the blood continued to come out and into my palm.

"Thank you for taking the dagger out of me," he whispered.

He was the homicidal maniac, the one I had heard stories from Rebekah about. She mentioned that he loved to kill, for nothing more than entertainment, and there was usually a trail of bodies that followed him. According to Rebekah, she didn't believe there was anything human left in him.

Yet here he stood, looking at me as if I was royalty and he was a mere peasant. The smile was still almost coming out, but his eyes were completely locked on me.

It felt like we stood here forever, staring at one another and taking in each and every detail that we could. He had a lot more to see, with the vampire eyes of his, but I had a lot more worth looking at.

"May I have that dagger?"

I held it out towards him without blinking, without thinking twice about keeping it for myself. The daggers had been used against the Originals we could use it against more than once, and I never liked doing it. It felt like we were betraying them, after they had kept us alive just because they could.

It felt especially wrong when Elena daggered Elijah. He was keeping my existence a secret from his brother, gave me his word that Klaus wouldn't hear about me because of him, yet she daggered him anyways.

I didn't want anyone else to be wrongly daggered, and that could only happen if the people who the daggers could be used against had them.

He took the dagger from my hand and actually allowed his smile to come out now, though nothing more than the corners of his lips turning up, almost arrogantly. "Thank you."

I stood still while he went to the two remaining coffins beside me and removed the daggers from the other unknown sibling and Elijah. Even as I heard him struggle to open the final coffin, I didn't turn, only whispered, "It's sealed. We don't know what's in there, only that Klaus wants it."

The man didn't say anything, but the hairs on the back of my neck suddenly stood tall, a shiver running down the length of my spine. It didn't feel cold, or anything that resembled fear. The aftershock of the rush felt _good_ , in a way that I couldn't explain.

Was he looking at me? Was my body trying to be afraid?

I had so many questions that there wasn't enough time to answer, so instead, I walked over to the open coffin that was now empty and closed it back, letting my gaze find the attractive Original with the three daggers.

Just as I found words to say, the other two Originals that lay in coffins began to stir. The one with the long hair was the first to sit up, and his eyes were wide and dark, like that of a man with a vengeance. As he began to understand his surroundings, the anger faded away just a bit, and those dark eyes found me.

Elijah sat up out of his coffin before the man could find a question to ask, and there was a darkness in his brown eyes that I had seen a few times. Though in the end, Elijah _hadn't_ helped us kill Klaus, the things his brother did had pissed him off on more than one occasion.

The last time I saw him was the moment he ran away with his brother instead of killing him, like he was supposed to do.

The anger in his eyes softened when he saw me standing there, and a soft breath passed through his partially parted lips. "Darcy, it is lovely to see you again. I do not know how you have come across our coffins, but I thank you for doing the right thing."

"You guys have to get out of town," I said. "And you have to hurry. Stefan stole these coffins from Klaus, after Klaus ruined his life, and if he finds out that I let you guys out, he'll probably kill me. He could be back any moment now."

Elijah's eyebrows wove together, but he nodded. "Of course. We will leave town until the time is right for us all to come back and get our revenge on our brother."

"Time is right?" the man with the long hair asked. "The time is right now!"

"Finn, let's not be stupid." The only Original who remained that I didn't have a name for had his eyes still locked on me, sending a touch of warmth across my cheeks as my heart fluttered in my chest. Why was his gaze so mesmerizing? I had met attractive men in my life, and he was probably one of the most attractive, even if he did have a baby face. Something about his baby face was charming, made it easy to forget that he was over a thousand years old. "We have no idea what's going on in the world right now, in this town. For now, let's go and get an understanding of the world around us, and when we do, we will think of a plan to get our revenge."

"Since when are you the voice of reason?" Finn snapped back at him.

Elijah shook his head. "Brothers, now is not the time. Darcy has done us all a great kindness, so the least we can do is get away from here, as she has asked us to do."

In a single instant, they were all gone, as if it had all been my imagination playing tricks on me.

The only sign I had that it had been real was the two coffins that remained open, which I shuffled over to close as quickly and quietly as I could. Stefan could be anywhere, and if he saw even the blurs disappearing, there was no telling what he might think.

The sound of footsteps clunking down the stairs, not the steps a vampire would take unless deliberately trying to let me know he was coming, got me scurrying back to where I had been sitting in the floor, once each coffin was closed the way they had been the last time anyone else was in the room.

While Bonnie made her way into the room, her raven black curls falling perfectly on her slim shoulders as her eyes searched the room for someone—finding only me—I sent a text to Stefan, to let him know she was here.

"Did I miss anything?"

Her question was meant casually, not really meant to cause any kind of alarm, but what I had done caught up to me, the moment Bonnie's question left her mouth.

Holy shit, what did I just do?

* * *

 **A/N: I like to put lyrics at the beginning of each chapter, sometimes just a quote I read somewhere, but I usually put lyrics to songs that I feel describe the mood or content of the chapter. Sometimes, it's the song I listen to on repeat while writing a chapter. The lyrics at the beginning of this one are from the song _Punches_ by Bryce Fox. If you've never listened to him, I definitely recommend his stuff. He doesn't have a lot of songs, as he's a new artist as far as I know, but what he _does_ have is quality stuff, in my opinion.**

 **So it's been a while since I posted anything, but before I start posting a bunch of stuff, I want to make sure people want to read and are interested in what I have to offer. If no one's reading, I don't see much point in wasting my time posting. My little sister likes it, so I'll just write it and keep sending it to her if no one wants to read it.**

 **And I know that in the real Vampire Diaries world, a werewolf-siphoner-doppelganger tribrid would probably never exist, but that's the beauty of fanfiction. You can make whatever you want out of the story and characters you're given. I'm gonna try to stick to the actual canon lore, but there will be a few things that might not be 100% the same. For example, things aren't as rushed day-by-day as they are in Season 3. This story picks up right after _Homecoming_ , the mid-season finale I do believe.**

 **I've done a lot of research on siphoners and things of that nature, and I've watched a lot of scenes involving Kai. I know a bit of the story later on might not be completely accurate to the way siphoning actually works, but for the most part, I'm trying to stick to it.**

 **I'm gonna post a few more chapters before I ask for any kind of review. I don't ask for a lot, just one review. If one person wants me to post it, that's enough for me. :) Like I said, though, I'm gonna post up to chapter three before I hold off and wait for any reviews, as I'd like you to get a good sense of what you're reading before I insist on reviews.**

 **Of course, if you would like to review now, that's totally fine with me. :) I hope you guys enjoy!**


	3. 02: New Kid

"If I could have your attention, please.

Then I'll bring you to your knees.

This contagious chemistry is killing me."

* * *

Sleepless nights weren't uncommon for me, but usually, I could manage to pull out some semblance of sleep.

Last night had been different. The reminder of what I had done had me sick, tossing and turning until I finally just passed out. It felt like the second that I would fall asleep, a dream would start, dreams that I absolutely should not have been having.

The last Original brother, who I didn't know the name of, had been the first I set free, and he had been the one who grabbed onto me in a way I couldn't explain. All of the Originals were attractive in their own right; Rebekah was _stunning_ , with a perfectly shaped face and blonde hair to compliment her crystal blue eyes, and it helped that she had a perfectly shaped body, with curves in all the right places. Elijah was like that attractive older friend who you know is too old for you, but you sometimes watch from afar as he smiles or does something that's just utterly charming. Klaus had the "dark and mysterious" thing going for him, but most of his attractive was completely ruined by the horrible things he had done. While _I_ didn't personally find Finn to be all that attractive, he had a face shape that I knew many women did. Aside from being the original family of vampires, they had good genetics.

That one, though . . . any time I managed to sleep, my dreams were plastered with explicit scenes underneath the sheets on my bed, with sweat rolling down my body as he pleasured me all through the night.

Eventually, I gave up on sleep completely and sat in the nook in the far corner of my room and just waited glumly for the sunrise.

What had I done?

Most days, I would put in the effort to look good. I was the uglier twin, so it took more effort for me than it ever did Elena. She could leave her hair straight, wear simple clothes and shoes, and it would be okay. No one would think twice about it because she was still _beautiful_.

For me, it was completely different. My hair struggled to even be considered brown, and my eyes weren't the same color. There was a time I wore colored contacts, just to get people to stop making fun of me, but then they just started calling me fake.

That was the day I decided to not give two fucks about what anyone thought about me. That was the day Darcy Gilbert raised her head up high and did things for herself . . . sort of. I dressed in what I thought was cute, not giving any damns about if anyone else did.

No one else had to look at me and like what they saw. As long as I liked what I saw when I looked in a mirror, that was what mattered, and every day, I woke up and worked until I did.

Some days, I didn't let myself be bothered by the two different colored eyes, and I could appreciate the color of my hair, the way it complimented the color of my skin. Then there were normal days, like today especially, where I barely took the time to put makeup around my eyes, both to accent my long eyelashes and hide the dark circles that had formed after my night of no sleep.

My hair, which I always put effort into, was tucked into a neat bun and accented with a black bow headband to help hold all the stray baby hairs in place.

Elena and I both had the same kind of hair, even if the coloring was different. Our hair could hold curls well, and some days, we woke up with curls in our hair. Then there were others where it was just a wavy mess, and Elena found it easier to just straighten it and be done with it. That _was_ easier, and some days, I did the same, but usually, I liked volume. I liked spunk.

Straight just didn't suit my personality.

The outfit I wore tried to hide the lack of effort with my hair or face, with a pink floral print dress paired with a blue scarf, to bring out the color of the flowers, and a grey ruched sleeve blazer.

Everyone always told me that my style leaned towards vintage, which was why I loved pearls so much. There were at least six or seven floral print dresses somewhere in my closet, with more dresses than anything else.

My dresser was full of loose tees and sweats, with a few different pairs of pants hanging in my closet, but dresses and skirts were more my style. Something about them helped me feel better about myself as I walked out of my room each day.

The thick heel of my black suede boots clunked against the dark wooden floors of my bedroom as I stepped out of the conjoined bathroom Elena and I shared and back into my room, where I began gathering my things to head downstairs.

Seeing Elena standing in the doorway of my room, just outside of the bathroom, stopped my heart for the briefest of moments, and my body jerked back away from her.

"Shit!"

"I'm sorry!" she exclaimed, and her beautiful face twisted into a wince, her eyes narrowing as she shrunk back a bit. "I just . . . wanted to talk to you before we left."

"About what?"

My throat began to tighten, my mouth watering in anticipation. This wasn't a feeling I felt often, guilt and fear of the consequences of my actions. Of course I knew there were always consequences, but most times, I didn't let the fear of the consequences stop me or scare me. If I did, choices that had to be made wouldn't get made, and I would just end up with regrets.

At least if I regret making a choice, I didn't have to look back and wonder what might've happened had I made the choice. Regrets were easier for me to handle than what ifs.

"I just wanted to thank you," she said, and everything that had started to twist up on the inside suddenly relaxed. "You've been so amazing through all of this. You've been strong when I couldn't be, and you've been there for Jeremy a lot better than I have."

"It's been a lot worse for you than me," I reminded her. "Klaus just found out I existed."

If there was one thing Elena was good at, it was thinking that she could do it all. She was the older of the two of us, by about an hour I think, and she was the one suited to _be_ the big sister. She was cautious, and she made every decision with a clear head. If anything was ever wrong, Jeremy and I knew we always had Elena to turn to, for whatever it might be.

That hadn't really been the case lately because _she_ was the one with all the problems, problems bigger than all of us. Her problems had been different from mine; I felt isolated, as I wasn't blood related to Jeremy at all. The Gilberts, who had raised me believing me to be the daughter of John Gilbert, weren't my blood relatives.

Elena was the only Gilbert related by blood, and that was because of the mother we shared.

"But I'm not the doppelgänger who happens to be a witch and a werewolf at the same time," she said. "How are you holding up? Your temper seems . . . better."

"Believe it or not, yoga actually helps," I said. "It's helped me find a place to go when the anger gets to be too much. I know it was hard for Tyler because he never knew _why_ he was this way, but I think if someone had told him the truth from a young age, he would've been a lot better off."

"You didn't know from a young age," she pointed out, and her pearly whites began showing through her naturally beige-pink lips as she leaned against the doorframe of the bathroom. "I think, all things considered, we've been . . . lucky."

I snorted at the thought and headed for my bedroom door. Elena's footsteps were soft, but I could hear the bottom of her converse rubbing against the floor, just a few steps behind me.

It was easy to distract myself from the dreams I kept having the night before by getting ready. Even in the shower, I was able to distract myself by carefully shaving each part of my body, some places more than once, to make sure that not a single hair remained. At least if I focused on that, my mind wouldn't be rolling around in the gutter with a man I didn't even know the name of, or anything about him.

He was an Original vampire, one that even an Original had said was a lunatic. What business did I have in bed with him?

What made me pull the dagger out, though? In the moment, I didn't think twice about it, didn't let myself do anything but react, but after, thinking over and analyzing each and every second made me realize that something had pulled me to do it.

It wasn't curiosity, wasn't attraction. Something about seeing him lying there, after being betrayed by his brother who knows how long ago, felt wrong, and something felt right about taking the dagger out.

That was all I could really understand about it. It couldn't have been magic. Originals didn't have access to their powers anymore, as vampires couldn't be witches, and the spirits of the hundred dead witches that resided there sure as hell wouldn't have gotten me to take the dagger out.

Magic was the only logical thing that could explain it, but it didn't add up. It had to be something else.

The three of us rode to school without saying a word, only the low sounds of Elena's favorite pop station cutting through the silence. Jeremy had his headphones in, as he was openly not a fan of Elena's music, and while I had a different taste as well, it didn't really bother me like it did him. Sometimes, I could find songs on pop stations that I liked, at least a little.

If I was playing things off my Spotify, it was usually country or rock, with certain rap artists on rare occasion. My favorite was the indie style of music, musicians like Bryce Fox or Loote. They were different styles, Loote sounding more like indie pop whereas Bryce Fox was more like indie rock, but it was that kind of music that I could listen to on repeat.

It was good to see Caroline in better spirits. She hadn't come to school yesterday, as she was recovering from the nightmare that her birthday had become, but today, she was back with a large smile on her face, fully recovered and ready to take on the world.

Her hair was perfectly curled, falling just past her shoulders and accenting the cute denim jacket she wore with a pale pink dress and flat boots. I used to be a huge fan of stilettos or heels of any kind, but with the dangerous world around us, we had to be able to run at any time. I could get away with wedges, or heels like the thick ones on the boots I wore, but stilettos were a no-go, for any of us—at least while Klaus was still in town.

"So guess what."

My eyebrows rose. "Did you have sex with a random hot stranger? You have that 'hot stranger' look going for you."

She rolled her eyes. " _No_ , but I'm seriously thinking about it."

"What are you talking about?" Elena asked, but upon hearing that, Jeremy took that as his cue to leave.

He had been hanging out with Tyler a lot lately, so hearing the girl Tyler cared about—who actually loved him, to be clear—talking about boning some random stranger wasn't on his list of things he wanted to do.

The truth of it all was, Caroline _wasn't_ going to sleep with a random person. Right now, she was hurt and just talking, letting pointless fantasies that she would never allow to happen fill her mind.

"We have a new guy who started today, and he is probably one of the hottest people I've ever seen in my life." Caroline's eyes widened. "You remember how I reacted when Stefan started? Consider this me taking all of that back. I'm not going to marry Stefan in June—it'll be whoever this hottie is."

"We all know that's not gonna happen," I said, but just for fun, I took a couple steps back away from her, towards the front of the school. "Elena met Stefan first, so you know what? I think it'd be fun if I get to meet this one first."

"No fair!" she exclaimed, but the opportunity was there to get away from the two and inside, where this hot new student was probably headed to the office. Of course, being the horny teenage girl in desperate need of someone to love me like Caroline, Elena, and Bonnie all had, I was gonna at least check out the new person, see if there was any kind of spark or possibility.

It was something I tried not to get too down on myself about, but it was hard. Matt, who worshiped the ground Elena walked on most of the time, had moved on from Elena, to Caroline, who then fell in love with Tyler, after she and Matt broke up of course. Both of the Salvatore brothers were completely in love with my sister, even crazy Stefan who was trying really hard to pretend that he didn't give a damn about anything but revenge right now.

That left me the odd man out, the lone person in my group of friends who didn't really have _anyone_. Sometimes, Caroline would bully people into going out with me—I say that with love, though she really did make threats sometimes—but when I found out, I broke it off and made her stop. It worked, until a few months down the road when no one stepped up on their own.

She just didn't get it. People weren't gonna line up to go out with me. My eyes freaked them out if they took a good look.

The murmur of the crowd of students that lined the hallway was low, as it was still early, but the smell of perfume and cologne, with hints of deodorant, was already going strong.

Most high school students, especially the freshman, didn't know the first thing about the proper amount of body fragrance, but high school was a place to learn all of that, to figure things out. Usually, people learned through bullying and being teased, and that was a pain I understood. It was wrong, but it was unavoidable. People, especially high school teenagers, were just awful.

As I turned the corner to step into the hallway, the sight of the man turning away from the secretary's desk had my jaw on the floor—probably literally would've fallen on the floor had it not been hinged together through bone and thin muscles.

A large smirk grew on his lips, showing off the perfectly straight teeth that had remained mostly hidden when we met yesterday. He seemed hesitant to smile yesterday, as something was on his mind, but today was different. Today, the smirk didn't waste a second coming out, as if was eternally set there at one point but had forgotten its place.

His eyes were glittered with arrogance, but that wasn't the only thing that hung there. What Rebekah had described as, "A man whose ego could grow no larger, less it smother the entire world," was showing, but there was more to it than that.

"You look like you know your way around here. Why don't you show me how to get where I'm going?"

I could feel my eyes tightening as the range of my vision narrowed, almost cutting out the way he had styled his hair. Though it hadn't been long the day before, it was shorter today, with a much more modern touch that absolutely suited him.

"Sure. I'd be happy to."

The tiled floors underneath me helped me get the leverage I needed underneath the soft bottoms of my boots to spin effortlessly around, heading right back out of the office and into the still emptied halls.

One quick glance, passing over the sophomore girl who had recently dyed her hair blue and I only knew from an art class I had taken the last semester of my junior year, was all it took to realize that Elena and Caroline hadn't followed. Maybe Bonnie showed up and stopped them, or maybe they were actually giving me a shot.

Little did they know who this actually was.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I hissed, when we were barely three steps out of the office.

He held his hands up, and the smirk dimmed down, enough that it wasn't grinding all of my nerves together. "Listen, darling, I know we said that we would all leave so you wouldn't get in trouble, but your friends don't even know me. They wouldn't know the first thing about how I look, so there's nothing to worry about."

My teeth snapped together so tightly that the pain vibrated through them and pricked my gums, but it was short lived, as I had always struggled to grind my teeth and glare at the same time. "Except your psychotic brother!"

"You let me worry about him," he dismissed, but the moment of masked arrogance was gone. It was coming back out full force.

"Why are you here?" I demanded, folding my arms over my chest so that he might realize that I was actually pretty pissed off—since he didn't seem to notice. Or maybe he just didn't care.

"Maybe I wanted to thank you properly and get to know the beautiful woman who decided that even though she didn't know the monsters that lay daggered in a box, she didn't believe they deserved to lie daggered there."

That wasn't the answer I expected, nothing that I could've ever in a thousand years expected to hear, especially coming from the raging lunatic with no morals. He wanted to thank me properly? He had thanked me the day before, so how does one show appreciation more properly than that?

The beautiful woman part, however, rubbed all irritation away, and even though I _wanted_ to be irritated about that, I just couldn't be. This ridiculously attractive man thought that _I_ was beautiful?

"I'm Darcy Gilbert," I finally said, but not before straightening my chin so I could look right into his eyes. "Pleased to meet you."

The smirk began to fade again, or at least the arrogance of it. If I didn't know any better, I would've said an actual smile was trying to form.

"I noticed you were a Petrova doppelgänger," he said, but when the words left his mouth, his smile fell off of it as well. "Well, almost. I've seen Tatia, briefly met Katarina. I didn't think the doppelgängers could look any different at all."

"Yeah, well, my genetics gave nature the finger and decided that I needed to be partially albino, with a hint of heterochromia to make things even better."

His eyebrows rose. "Darling, I was up all night trying to catch up with the world, but I have no idea what you just said."

"Albinism is a genetic disorder that causes someone's hair, skin, and eyes to either have complete lack of pigment, or like in my case, partial," I said, letting out a sigh. "Heterochromia is a genetic thing—don't know if it's considered a disorder or not—that makes someone have two different colored eyes. The albinism is in one eye but not in the other. It's why my hair isn't rich like Elena's, why my skin is so pale."

"Who's Elena?"

"My twin sister," I said. "The only doppelgänger people actually knew existed. They weren't sure if I was, but lucky me, I am."

"I like pretty things with sharp tongues." His lips curled back into the smirk as his eyes began moving, pretty noticeably, over the full frame of my body. "I'm Kol, by the way."

"Kol." I rubbed my lips together and was reminded of the vanilla chapstick I had put on earlier, as a precaution. I _despised_ chapped lips, so whenever it started to get cold, I put it on at least once a day. "It suits you."

"Something about Darcy suits you as well."

Seeing him smile, without the presence of arrogance, made me forget how wrong this conversation was. When was he going to snap and kill someone? When was he going to threaten me and everyone I cared about?

Was he going to do that?

"Why are you here, Kol, really?"

"If I could explain it, I would," he said, but hearing me question him again, the insistence that he give me some kind of answer, pulled the smile back off his face, his eyes falling down to the ground, where he began eyeing my shoes. "I've never done anything like this, so forgive me if I don't know how this works."

My eyes narrowed a bit, one eyebrow rising, but I shifted my weight to the other side. Most times, I didn't stay in one place long enough to have to do that, but here we stood, in the middle of the hallway that was growing more and more crowded by the minute.

"How what works?"

"Human decency," he murmured. "I-I don't want to spoil all the fun, but come to class with me, Darcy. We've got a whole day ahead of us to learn and explore."

He started to walk away, and I found myself following after him, without thinking anything about it at all.

Getting caught up in the stories I had heard about him would've been easy to do, and it probably would've been the smart thing to do. Trails of bodies? There was no way to know how many people he had killed, with no remorse about it at all.

None of it was making sense, though. If he didn't have anything inside of him that was capable of feeling something real, something that wasn't just psychotic and narcissistic tendencies, then why was he here properly thanking me? Why go to all this trouble?

Maybe, deep down, there _was_ someone worth loving hiding underneath all the blood and destruction.

It was also easy to lie to myself, to say that it had nothing to do with me, but he put himself in my classes. He wanted me to follow him around, to talk to him and get to know one another, so it had _something_ to do with me, even if just minutely.

If something about me brought him here, had him enrolling in school to get to know me, maybe I could get to know that person inside, the man worth loving who deserved a chance to find redemption for all of the horrible things he had done.

Damon had done horrible things, too, and if he had lived as long, surely his number could compare. Yet I still loved him like a brother, was still secretly hoping that he ended up with my sister—it helped when she admitted that they kissed the other night, so there was hope at least.

Maybe Kol needed a friend, and while no one around me knew who he really was, I could take the chance I had to be that friend.

Or something more. There were multiple different roads ahead, but I wasn't gonna think about any of them too much.

Whatever path I took would be the path that made the most sense as each turn came.

* * *

 **A/N: Yeah, so, another band I highly recommend? You Me at Six. I'm currently pretty obsessed with them. The lyrics at the beginning of this chapter are from their song** _ **Contagious Chemistry.**_

 **Read, review, and enjoy. :)**


	4. 03: Hottie

"Let me tell you straight.

I could be your worst mistake,

Or you could get the best of me."

* * *

When Kol mentioned having the whole day to learn and explore, I didn't realize what he meant at the time, but he had gotten himself put in all of my classes. There were some with assigned seating where he would have to look at me from across the room, but for the most part, he was able to sit near me all day. He even got assigned as my chemistry partner, since there had been an odd number of students and I was the odd man out.

Everyone partnered up with their friends, and none of mine were in class with me, so no one wanted to partner with the weird looking Gilbert twin.

It had been a bummer before, but not now. As much as I wanted to get away from Kol, he was far too charming for my own good.

What could it hurt? Like he said before, none of my friends recognized him. He even sat with us at lunch, perfectly giving some story about being born in Australia, a place just outside of Sydney. His dad still lived there, but his mom moved back to the States after the divorce, bringing Kol with her. Even in the middle of all the vampire madness, he was so charming that my friends believed it, didn't see past him at all.

Elena had made it a point to taunt me throughout the day, especially in math class. He leaned forward and asked me, rather charmingly, if I had a pen, as he hadn't brought one, so of course I gave him one. Elena noticed the smile on his lips and mouthed, "You should give him a personal tour."

Whether Kol saw it or not, my face was flushed, and I refused to look at her for the rest of the class period. I _did_ get a note from her, one demanding that I get his number and ask him out. It wasn't like she was forcing me to do it, but she actually wrote _Take Caroline's advice for a change._

If they only knew.

School let out, and I could feel Kol standing directly behind me almost the whole way out the doors. If the magic in his blood wasn't enough, making eye contact usually got a strange feeling pulsing through me, rushing through every part of my body and getting me rather turned on.

It really didn't help that a smirk would sometimes linger on his lips when eye contact was made, in a similar way to the dreams I had had the night prior.

Caroline was usually the first to get outside, and today, Bonnie and Elena were already outside with her. Despite the wind blowing their hair around in their face pretty wildly, they still stood there, obnoxiously smirking at the two of us as we headed towards them.

"Darcy."

Hearing Kol call my name out, before we could make it over to my friends and sister, stopped me dead in my tracks. Of course I turned around to face him, to see what he wanted, and the smile that hung on his lips surprised me, though it was followed up by a smirk that wasn't surprising at all.

He handed me a folded up piece of paper. "You should call me sometime."

I couldn't help but wonder, as I stared up at his smirk, at the softness in his eyes that didn't match the smirk that he was portraying, if this was just a simple gesture for a phone conversation. Was this a hint at protection? At something more than just two acquaintances talking outside of school?

I was probably looking too much into it, though.

As I turned back away from him, slipping the note into the front pouch on the messenger bag I was carrying, I finished the walk over to my friends, whose smirks had only grown wider after what he had done.

"So, Kol, what do you think about Mystic Falls?" Bonnie asked, and though her question seemed innocent, her smirk was anything but.

"It's definitely different from anything I'm used to. The people here are different."

"You know, you can just say it," Elena informed him, and her eyes were absolutely shining.

I rolled my eyes. "Seriously? Can we not do this?"

A short laugh sounded beside me, a laugh that made my heart flutter, and Kol's eyes only narrowed in amusement, arrogance. The smile was genuine, very real, but he seemed rather proud for a moment.

How would my friends be reacting if they knew who he was? It definitely wouldn't be smiles and jokes about the two of us; Bonnie probably would've incapacitated him by now, warning him about what would happen if he got near me again.

They _didn't_ know, however, so all they saw was a hot new guy flirting with their friend who was usually left alone.

"Darcy is definitely like no one I've met before."

"She's free this weekend," Caroline informed him, and a large smile pulled out onto her lips. "She's free just about every weekend."

"Seriously, Kol, just go," I groaned, and I began pushing him away from me a little bit. Of course he was stronger than me and able to resist, while laughing the entire time, but that didn't mean I stopped trying. "My friends are seriously the worst."

"I like your friends," he disagreed. "They're so helpful."

"See, Darcy, we're helpful," Elena teased.

"So we didn't get to finish interrogating you at lunch," Bonnie pointed out. "Unless we're coming on too strong?"

"No, I love talking about myself," he assured her. "Ask away."

Caroline's eyebrows rose. "Cocky much?"

"Yes, much." Kol gave her a smirk to match the statement. "What would you lovely ladies like to know about me?"

"You're very noticeably into our friend here," Bonnie said. "But for reasons we won't get into right now, we have to protect her. I'm sure you understand that."

"Of course." His eyes moved away from Bonnie and over towards me, where they softened almost immediately. "She's such a bright person. I can imagine seeing her in pain wouldn't be easy."

"It's kinda funny how you ended up in all of her classes," Caroline noted.

"I like to call it fate working out in my favor," Kol said, but he followed it up with a sigh almost immediately. "As much as I would love to stay here and chat with you ladies, I have a lot of unpacking left to do at home." He turned away from my friends so that his body was facing me while he took a few steps back, allowing another one of his charming smiles to come out. "I'll see you tomorrow, Darcy."

"Yeah, sure."

The smile didn't fade from his face, not until he was completely turned away from me and close to the car that I had never seen before.

It definitely had to be his; no one in Mystic Falls could afford whatever it was. The more I studied the sleek black car he got into, with the butterfly doors that seemed to come standard on those kinds of luxury cars, I began to notice that there was a logo on the front that I recognized—BMW.

At least it wasn't a Lamborghini. That would've just been completely over the top.

Then again, from what I had gathered about Kol, over the top was exactly how he liked to do things.

"Seriously, Darcy, if I wasn't just getting over Tyler, I would be all up on that," Caroline moaned from behind me, reminding me that I wasn't alone. "If you don't, I probably will anyways. Everyone needs a hot rebound."

Elena rolled her eyes, but she grinned over at our friend. "He's pretty cocky."

Caroline nodded, but her eyes hadn't moved away from where he had last stood, her eyebrows still raised up. "He's got a lot to be cocky about."

"Did you guys notice that he didn't even seem to notice Elena, except to politely look at her when she talked?" Bonnie asked.

Though I hadn't thought much about it, I kind of knew that he wouldn't have been fazed by Elena. He had seen Petrova doppelgängers before, so seeing one that was almost the same but still slightly different had to be far more intriguing.

"Maybe it's the way they present themselves," Caroline suggested, finally tearing her eyes away from where Kol had been, back over to the three of us near her. "Just because they look alike doesn't mean they are. Maybe he's seeing the Darcy we all know and love."

Jeremy approached us about then, and Bonnie and Caroline both took that as their cue to leave. Things had been pretty awkward between Bonnie and Jeremy since he made out with his dead girlfriend, and it had been kinda tense whenever they were both around Elena and me as well. Bonnie didn't expect us to be upset with him like she and Caroline were, since he was our little brother, but more than that, I could almost see why it happened. He had actually fallen in love with Anna, and just like most people in our lives, he lost her way too soon, without much warning. It had been hard for him to fully move on from that.

That didn't excuse what he did; just because he could see his dead girlfriend didn't mean he should've made out with her. I just understood _why_.

Elena always told me that was probably my most mature feature, my ability to see both sides of a situation—even if it was a situation _I_ was in, one that very directly affected me and my way of thinking. It made me more capable of forgiving and understanding than a lot of people.

It didn't make me a better person. I just understood a lot more.

Every part of Jeremy regretted the mistake he had made, but there wasn't anything he could really do to take it back. Any time he saw Bonnie, it was painfully obvious to anyone, Bonnie included, that he hated himself for what he had done.

His normally warm eyes were shattered as he watched her walk away, until he couldn't see her anymore. The cold wind didn't even seem to affect him, as his mind wasn't on the world around him.

"You guys ready to head home?" Jeremy finally asked once Bonnie's Prius was gone from the parking lot, but not a moment before.

"Yeah." Elena stood up from the table outside that she had been sitting on, where she had been waiting for Kol and me to come out with Bonnie and Caroline, and a wry smile curled onto her lips, her eyes gleaming with arrogance that wasn't like Elena. "You should invite Kol over to dinner sometime. We could get to know him better."

"You guys are completely blowing this out of proportion," I informed her. "He's just some hot new guy who moved to town and just so happens to be in all of my classes."

It was a nice thought, paired with the reminder of who he was and all the horrible things he must've done, but that's all it was—a _thought_. It wasn't real, just the thought I kept trying to shove so deep inside that even my heart believed it.

My heart was stronger than I gave it credit for, though.

* * *

 **A/N: The lyrics at the beginning of this chapter are from the song _Chewing Gum_ by Nina Nesbitt.**

 **Now, before I post anymore content, I'd like to make sure there is at least one person out there who wants to read it. So if you like what you've read so far, leave a review and let me know! I'd love any kind of feedback. :) Constructive criticism only, please. Nothing super rude. I try not to let it get to me, but let's face it. Being told you suck and should stop writing hurts. (I was told that years ago, back when I posted one of my first few stories. It still gets to me sometimes.)**

 **Read, review, and enjoy!**


	5. 04: Text

"Tell me what you want to hear,

Something that will light those ears.

I'm sick of all the insincere.

I'm gonna give all my secrets away."

* * *

The paper in my jacket pocket had burned a hole in it the entire way home, but I let it burn until I was upstairs in my room.

It wasn't just his number, but his name was also scribbled along the top. _Kol Mikaelson_.

The way he spelled his name was different, but I liked it. It was also the first I had heard the last name of the Original family, but it fit with the time they came from—they were the sons of Mikael, thus making them the _Mikael_ son family.

We just never really thought about it, as there were so many different places last names originated from.

Putting his number into my phone was probably the biggest mistake I could've made. He was already stuck in my head after the day we had had, but to have his number easily accessible, where all I had to do was text him . . . it was dangerous.

Kol was an Original vampire, the worst of them all. Texting him, being friends with him . . . it wasn't a good idea, but what choice did I have? If I didn't, if I hurt his feelings, who was to say he wouldn't tell everyone who he was and what I had done?

Then, what about the parts of me that _wanted_ to be friends with him, or more? The undeniable pull I felt toward him, the pull that had me taking the dagger out without thinking twice about the consequences of what I was doing, was a mystery. Didn't I owe it to myself to figure out what it was?

After pushing myself through math homework, my weak willed heart shoved me over the edge of the dangerous cliff, into the dark territory that lay below. Kol was ridiculously attractive, and he wore arrogant well. Most people couldn't pull arrogant off without being obnoxious, but most of the time, he did.

 ** _So . . . the sane parts of me are telling me to delete this as I'm typing it, but I guess everyone has a bit of crazy buried deep inside that they can't resist in the end._**

To distract myself from what I had done, I let my mind fill with other thoughts and stepped out of my room, walking down the hall and past Elena's room. The closed door to Jeremy's room didn't actually surprise me, and even though I knew the response I was gonna get, I knocked anyways.

"I don't wanna talk."

"Just making sure you're decent." The cold knob stung against my hand as I grabbed on it and turned, pushing the door open with enough force to send it flying but not too much as to break anything. "Because I _do_ wanna talk."

"Talk about what?" he snapped. "Talk about how I screwed up? I already know that."

"Yeah, you did," I agreed, but I didn't let his pessimism kill the conversation. Instead, my bare feet danced from the doorway over to his bed, where I hopped on and very quickly began making myself at home, much to his annoyance. "I'm just curious how you plan to fix it."

"There is no fixing it," he said, and his eyebrows rose. "Bonnie runs away any time she sees me. How am I supposed to fix anything?"

I shrugged. "She may run away, but I don't see you chasing after her. Stop being compliant. You wanna fix things with Bonnie? Then fix them. Don't just mope around feeling sorry for yourself."

The corners of his eyes tightened as they locked on me, but the anger was fading, curiosity taking its place quickly. "What do you have in mind?"

"Flowers." The sweats I had changed into were tight, but loose enough to not restrict movement, but they were so tight that even as I folded my legs Indian style on his bed, I still felt the soft vibration of the phone in my pocket. "Write a card. Draw her a picture of herself. You're a smart kid, Jer. Think of something."

"I'm not the flowers kinda guy," he disagreed, and he shook his head. "I think a picture of her might be too much."

"That's your choice then," I sighed. "I think you not being a flowers type of guy is just gonna make it that much more special to her. Don't be overly obnoxious about it. Just bring them to her after school one day, before she gets in her car, or maybe even before. Be subtle about it. Don't try to openly bombard her with flowers. Bonnie is a romantic, but she's not vibrant like Caroline."

"That's one thing I love about her," he said, but just the casual conversation we were having right now got his lips curling up into a smile, all remnants of pain trickling into oblivion so space was left for the good feelings. "She just wants to be loved and appreciated, you know? She doesn't expect grand gestures. All she wants is devotion." His eyebrows furrowed. "And I screwed that up."

"Well, if all she wants is devotion, devote yourself to winning her back," I said. "Flowers are just a start. Apologize to her, directly. Write her a letter if you struggle to find the words. I know it won't be easy, but relationships never are."

He snorted. "Right. How many have you been in?"

"Ouch."

It had been a lighthearted comment, just a little brother picking fun at his big sister, but there wasn't anything playful about it, not on the inside. Jeremy understood the lonely feeling that I had felt my entire life, but after our parents died, no one was there to pick the broken pieces back up. Jeremy found Vicki, and Elena found Stefan. At the time, Damon was running on basically zero emotions or sanity, so it wasn't like I could just go for the other Salvatore brother.

That was just a bad time in a lot of people's lives. Matt and Elena broke up, leaving him heartbroken, and our parents were dead, so of course we were all devastated. Caroline's parents' divorce was still pretty fresh on her mind, so she was struggling to cope with that, even if she tried acting like she was totally fine with it. Then of course Bonnie's life had always been complicated, with her mom walking out when she was just three years old forcing her to live with her dad and grandmother. It wasn't even her dad's mom that was helping him raise her; it was her mom's.

Things were just hard for all of us for a while, but of course, that was only the beginning of the hardships in Mystic Falls.

After the Salvatore brothers came to town, death and chaos followed. It was the life of a vampire.

All the hardships this town had faced were really easy to blame on them, and Jeremy did. It was why he hated them so much; if Stefan and Damon hadn't stayed in town when they saw Elena, we probably would've gone our entire lives without anyone finding out that the doppelgänger was alive.

How could they have been expected to leave? They had no idea why she looked exactly like Katherine, only that she did. It wasn't like they knew danger would follow them because of what she looked like.

More than that, Katherine had been the woman they loved, the woman who turned them into vampires. Why would they leave the human version of her without even getting to know her?

Was it selfish? Maybe, depending on how you looked at it. Without knowing what would follow if they stayed and brought attention to her, it really wasn't all that selfish.

While Jeremy's eyes fell away from me, once he realized what he had said and who he had said it to, I took that chance to pull my phone out and steal a glance at the text from Kol.

 ** _I'm definitely into crazy._**

This didn't go unnoticed by Jeremy, and he actually began to smirk a little, especially when he saw me sending a quick text back.

 ** _Aren't you the textbook definition of it?_**

"Play victim all you want, but I saw you and the new guy," he informed me. "I give it a week. I mean, you're already texting?"

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna date him," I said.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how inevitable it must've seemed to everyone. What excuse could I honestly give, though? _"Yeah, it was just too risky."_ Pretty sure all of my friends would actually slap me if I tried that one.

Good things in life didn't come easy. Most times, they came from taking a risk, so was this a risk worth taking? Getting to know an _Original vampire_?

He had killed more people than I could probably ever imagine, done horrible things that would make me physically sick if I actually found out about it, but did that mean he didn't deserve to be loved?

A lot of people in the world would've said it did, but love is powerful enough to change the world. If everyone gave a little more love, even to the people who probably didn't deserve it, that was what would stop wars.

The perfect example of what I believed was the _Now_ music video Paramore did. It was just a staged fight, but it was very powerful, seeing her run up to the man dressed as the dictator and just hugging him. If more people found and received love, there would be more love around the world to give.

"You know how many guys I've seen you text after just meeting them?" he asked, and as my face began to scrunch, his smile only widened. "One—this new guy. What's his name again?"

"Kol." It felt good to take a deep breath, to try and focus my thoughts. "I don't know, Jer. He's . . . not like anyone else I've ever met before."

His eyes widened a bit. "That's intense. What's the problem if you know he's different?"

Feeling my phone vibrate again gave me the much needed distraction from his question, since that wasn't really a question I had an answer to right now. The _real_ problem was something I couldn't talk about, not without telling everyone that I had let the three Originals out of their coffins yesterday.

 ** _Well, you got me there, but I'm trying to learn some semblance of sanity._**

While I hadn't thought much about what he might say back to that, what he actually said wasn't even remotely what I would've even expected.

Trying to learn sanity?

 ** _What made you decide to do something like that? You're the maniac, remember?_**

"I guess it's just fear holding me back," I finally said, after sending the text and tossing my phone to the side, just a bit away from me on Jeremy's bed. It wasn't that I planned to ignore it from this point forward, but on the contrary, it would've been easier to see it when I got a new text. "I'm so used to people seeing me, finding a way to ignore my quirks, and then seeing Elena and realizing they don't have to, leaving me in the dust."

"We've already established that those people are idiots," he reminded me. "Don't tell Elena, but I think you're the prettier one."

The smile that came to my face was automatic, and my eyes darted over to him, looking at the smile already on his lips and the sincerity in his eyes. Jeremy wasn't one to just make shit up to make someone feel better. He was a no-bullshit kinda guy; he'd even tell a vampire to fuck off. Gilbert ring that brought him back to life any time something supernatural killed him aside, he didn't back down or pretend to feel a different way about anything.

"Yeah, but you're weird."

This time, Jeremy felt my phone vibrate, as it was just an inch or so away from his foot, and his smile twisted into a smirk, those eyes losing all semblance of kindness as satisfaction came out instead.

"If I'm so weird, why does this new guy, who all the girls are talking about being the hottest guy to ever come to Mystic Falls, agree with me?" he challenged.

There were so many ways I could've protested it, but they all would've had the same outcome, at least without admitting the truth. Kol stuck around me because I was the one to let him out. I knew who he was.

That still didn't explain why he was here. He said it was to thank me properly, but enrolling in school seemed a bit much for just thanking me. There had to be some kind of ulterior motive behind it all. The thought of it all was nice, but Kol wasn't hanging around me because he found me pretty.

 ** _When a beautiful woman removes a dagger from your chest after it had been there for over a century, and she's the first thing you see, it puts a bit of a new perspective on things._**

What do I really know about anything, ever?

Nothing, apparently.

 ** _That wouldn't be the first time I've been called beautiful, but most people change their tune once they meet Elena. Apparently her compassion is more endearing than my sass._**

"That was a long message," Jeremy noted, not even a second after I hit the button to send it to Kol. "Come on, Darc. You know you can tell me all about it. I won't judge."

"I'm more curious as to what you plan to do about Bonnie, besides just sit around and mope," I disagreed. "Come on, Jer. Let's think of something. Flowers before or after school, a note or monologue about all the different ways you screwed up, and how about a picture? Maybe not of her directly but something that reminds you of her, like fire or a rose—anything. What do you see and automatically think of Bonnie?"

"A candle," he said, without even thinking about it for a second. As he said it, a ghost of a smile touched the corners of his lips. "The first time I realized she was extraordinary was after I watched her light a candle with her magic, and I was fascinated ever since. After that, I can't look at a candle without thinking about her."

"So draw a candle," I suggested. "And not just any old boring candle. Make it fucking exquisite, like the gem that Bonnie is. All of this combined, Jer, and I think Bonnie might be willing to forgive you, or at least give you a second chance."

"I hope so."

The phone vibrating in my hand was a bit more muffled, at least the sound it made, but it was easier to feel, the vibrations actually seeping through my skin and touching the surface of the bone inside, or it felt that way anyways.

 ** _No offense, darling, but your sister doesn't seem as fun. I've been in a coffin for almost a century. I'm in dire need of entertainment._**

Sitting in here talking to Jeremy while texting Kol was rude, so with my purpose for being in here finished—getting Jeremy to fight for Bonnie back—my legs untangled themselves, and my feet fell onto the cold wood floors. While I wasn't super short, actually right about average height for a woman, I weighed little enough that stepping almost silently was possible, even without trying.

"We'll talk later," I said. Before leaving, I stopped to grab the knob, pulling the door almost completely closed, with only enough room for me to poke my head back in. "If you need anything, you know where I'm at."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Go on, Darcy. Thank you, for everything. You're always good at kicking me in the ass when I need it."

I smirked. "What are big sisters for?"

Hearing a laugh, one that wasn't forced or half-hearted, made me feel a lot better about his well-being than when I first came in there. His love for Anna, the inability to properly say goodbye, blinded him to what he was doing, to the point that he didn't even really think that it was such a big deal. After it happened, of course he knew that it was, and he wanted to make his mistakes right. He realized that he had lost Bonnie, and that deeply hurt him.

Jeremy wasn't an expert in love either, however, so for him, righting his wrong seemed like an impossible task.

Lucky for him, I knew Bonnie, and I knew what it would take to get at least a second chance. She would definitely be wary to trust him again, but all he needed was a second chance to prove that he _could_ do the right thing, love her the way that she deserved.

Until I was back in the safety of my room, with my door closed completely, I didn't pull my phone back out to send the text to Kol. Until the soft sheets were underneath me, cool to the touch, with my head falling back into the fluffy pillow it usually rested on whenever I closed my eyes, I didn't pull the messages back up.

 ** _Is that all I am to you? Entertainment?_**

It was a pretty bold question, one I didn't allow myself to think about before sending it. Second guessing myself led to hesitation, which could lead to not getting the answers I was gonna need if this was gonna go any further, even to friendship.

Who was I kidding? Of course we were already friends. If we weren't, why didn't I tell anyone who he was? Surely there was more to it than protecting my ass.

 ** _Of course not. You're a mystery to me, a beautiful and magnificent complexity that I've never known in my life._**

That was so much more than the text I had always wanted to get from a crush, more than just, _You are so beautiful_. It was generic, but once in my life, I wanted to hear that from someone who was romantically interested in me, not just family or friends who were pretty much obligated to tell me that.

As I lay in bed, thinking about the situation I had found myself in, a new thought occurred to me: what if Kol found out that I was a werewolf?

So far, we had kept it hidden from pretty much everyone. Tyler and Caroline knew, as Tyler had helped me keep from triggering my curse at one point, but outside of the small circle of friends, people didn't know. Without knowing who my father was, there was no way for them to know.

There was also the witch side of me, but maybe that wasn't such an important secret to keep. The fact that I couldn't produce magic of my own might've been a secret to keep, at least until I understood it, but just the fact that I was a witch? What would it change? I wasn't powerful, not even remotely.

If the wrong person found out about the werewolf side of me, however, it was only a matter of time before Klaus found out. Would he make me a hybrid, just because he could? There was a bit of a shortage of werewolves, especially after he created so many hybrids without knowing that he had to give them doppelgänger blood to complete their transition. What vampires hadn't killed out over the years, Klaus was doing a pretty damn good job of killing himself.

I didn't want to become one of his hybrid bitches. Having to listen to his demands to protect the ones I loved was bad enough. To have to do it because I didn't have another choice was the worst kind of hell I could imagine on earth . . . one that didn't involve torture and blood and all kinds of horrible physical things.

So Kol couldn't know then, but how long could I expect myself to keep it from him? Clearly, this was something at least remotely more for him, and I didn't have the willpower to keep myself away, as I was so clearly proving to myself when I texted him in the first place.

All I had to do was tell him to shove it, to demand he leave me alone, but I hadn't done that, not once.

If he found out, would he tell Klaus? Would his hatred for his brother and what he had done to him fuel him to keep this secret from him?

There really wasn't any way to say for certain, so until I knew that I could trust him, I had to do whatever I could to make sure he didn't find out.

Right now, all he could know was that I was a doppelgänger with the ability to use magic, and even that part would just have to come later, once I knew what the connection we had really was.

* * *

 **A/N: So I woke up to seven story followers and a review, which is amazing! You guys are awesome! I'm glad you guys like it so far. I'm trying to keep everyone in character as much as possible, but I'll probably slip every now and then. I hope you guys like this story anyways!**

 **The lyrics at the beginning are from the song _Secrets_ by OneRepublic. :) I hope you guys continue to enjoy my story! Let me know what you think as it progresses.  
**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy! :)**


	6. 05: The Perfect Dress

"And it's a fresh start fever.

Who wouldn't want to be here?

Welcome to the future.

Dream a little bigger.

As for now, I reserve judgments."

* * *

" _So I know this is probably pretty sudden, and I don't really know the proper way to ask this, but would you allow me the honor of taking you out, Darcy Gilbert?"_

One day, I was telling myself that it was best if I distanced myself from Kol, if I let the attraction and whatever seemed to be pulling me towards him fizzle out, and the next, I found myself going on a date with him.

How did I end up here, staring at my closet full of clothes as if it was completely barren? There was no shortage of dresses in there, or upstairs in the attic stored away for any formal events that we might go to, but I had seen them all. They were either too plain or too flashy.

Without the slightest idea what we might be doing, or even where we might be going, it was like trying to take a test without going to class or studying at all.

Of course, I had help, as Caroline, Bonnie, and Elena weren't going to let the supernatural world stop us from making the most this momentous occasion, my first real date. I hadn't mentioned it to Kol yesterday, when he brought up what time he'd be picking me up tonight, but of course Caroline had to say, _"This is her first date, so you better make it extra special."_

Why did everyone have to point that out? It made me feel incredibly lame. Yes, I was eighteen years old and had never been taken on a proper date, and the only person I had kissed or slept with was a vampire completely in love with my sister, but it wasn't by my own personal choice—the lack of date that is. It had been completely consensual, that night with Damon.

"This one would look good," Caroline murmured, and she turned away from my closet holding a maroon bandage dress, with short cap sleeves that barely went to the edge of my shoulder.

"Yeah, except for the fact that I don't have any shoes I can wear with it that I can walk in," I said, and my body fell back onto the pile of dresses laid out on my bed, a loud groan rumbling out of my chest. "This is hopeless. I should just tell him I changed my mind."

"Yeah, _no_ ," Elena snorted. "Just because you're nervous doesn't mean you can just bail. He looked really excited. Did you see the way his eyes were practically shining when he got in his car, after you said you would see him tonight?"

She wasn't wrong about that; when I said goodbye to Kol by reminding him about our date—as if all the times he talked about it throughout the day weren't reminder enough for him—even the sun couldn't compare to the way his eyes lit up.

"What about this one?" Bonnie suggested, pulling out a strapless dark teal bandeau lace dress. "You have plenty of cute boots you could wear with this one."

"Bonnie, you've seen his car," Caroline said, and her eyebrows rose. "Wherever they're going, I'm sure it's _stunning_ , and Darcy is probably the queen of looking cute all the time, but she has to look more than cute tonight."

Bonnie nodded her head to the side in agreement while Elena continued watching me, her dark eyes smug as her lips curled into a smirk. "Just try and make him work for it?"

My eyes widened. "What the—come on, guys, I'm not some sex-crazed girl who jumps on every dick that gets hard around me."

"Why do we ever make the mistake of talking about sex with you?" Caroline groaned, her voice echoing out of the almost emptiness of my closet. "I swear, it's like talking to a guy."

"Guys, move out of the way," Elena said, and she stood up from my bed to go into my closet. "I know exactly what she needs to wear."

Caroline and Bonnie were quick to do what she said, both wearing eager smiles as they stepped out of my closet. All the shirts and jeans had been removed to make it easier to look for the perfect dress, along with any "casual" dresses that Caroline immediately declared to be too cute.

The purple bandeau dress she pulled out got immediate unanimous agreements, from both Bonnie and Caroline. They had been opposing sides all day, with Caroline declaring that I had to look beyond stunning and sexy and Bonnie insisting that showing off too much on a first date was just not my style. Elena agreed with both sides, insisting there had to be a perfect medium, and I just sat around feeling completely hopeless about it all.

This was the perfect medium Elena had been trying to think about, the one she knew was in there. It was made of chiffon, with sequins on the top and two layers of chiffon crossed over to give it a bit more elegance and less flair. I had loved it for its beauty and simplicity, the way it both stood out and blended in. It was my "perfect for just about anything" dress.

Perfect for anything, yet I hadn't found a reason to wear it yet.

Until now.

The three left my room while I slid it on, pulling it up from the ground up to not mess up the hair they had spent a good deal of time on. They had come over at _noon_ , to make sure we had at least six and a half hours to get me ready to go, and they used every minute of it.

The bun they had put my hair in, with all the twisting and styling it just so, resembled a rose, with two strands of hairs falling down the side of my face in beautiful curls.

It worked out that we picked out a purple dress. Caroline had done purple smoky eye makeup, blended with both dark and light purples to make it look good with whatever I planned to wear.

Elena came back in, after I had the dress pulled up, wearing a soft but proud smile. She walked across the room without a word, coming over to zip up the back of my dress without having to be asked.

"I'm happy for you," she informed me. "You deserve something like this. I know you two barely know one another, but he's insanely attracted to you. Not just the way you look either. You deserve that in your life, and he just so happens to be insanely gorgeous and rich as hell to boot."

"He calls it luck, as it's just his parents' way of fighting for his favoritism."

She let out a breath that resembled a laugh. "Yeah, that would be luck, as lucky as someone can be when their parents are divorcing. What I'm getting at, though, is that even if the timing of all of this is horrible, I'm happy for you."

I turned back around to face her, to throw my arms around her, and she met the gesture almost immediately. This was probably one of the most comfortable places I had left in the world, in the embrace of my sister. We were the exact same height, exact same shape, though some of my genetic disorders gave me a bit more meat in some places. Her hugs were just comfortable.

"Thank you, Elena," I murmured.

For tonight, I decided to let the guilt of what I was doing disappear. What was done was done; I couldn't go back and change the moment that I decided to take the daggers out. I couldn't change the fact that I had already lied to them about who he was. There was no reason to tell them now.

Above all else, Kol had been really nice to me, and extremely genuine. He hadn't held back anything, even when the questions I asked might lead me away from him if the answers weren't what I wanted to hear. They _weren't_ , yet he still gave them to me.

Somehow, instead of pushing me away, those answers brought me to a place where I said yes when he asked me out. I said yes to the Original vampire who wanted to go out with me.

Caroline and Bonnie came in the room, wearing different degrees of the same eager smile, and they both scurried over to join in on the hug. Caroline was extremely careful not to get close to my hair, since she ended up the closest to it, and my heart hadn't felt so full and warm as it had in that moment.

These girls would go to the end of the earth and back for me, and I would always do the same for them.

The doorbell rang downstairs, and all good feelings were gone. The three around me let me go and took off, each of them declaring that they would be the one to open it, but everything inside of me grew rigid.

Kol had mentioned that he found me beautiful, so why was I so nervous about this? Of course we had spent the entire seven hours making sure I looked as perfect as possible, but would I really look good to _him_?

This was more than worrying about how I looked. What did I really expect to get out of this night? He was an Original vampire, the worst of them all, and I was just going on a date with him? For what? To have a magical evening and then wake up in the morning and remind myself that none of it mattered? That his brother could, at any time, find out he isn't in the coffin and kill me for letting him out?

There was no way to know _how_ Klaus would react if he found out, but it didn't really make much difference. Kol and I couldn't be together. My friends and family finding out who he really is was inevitable. One day, they would know, and how much would they hate me?

Downstairs, I could faintly hear Elena say, "Hey, Kol! Come on in. She'll be right down."

At least that part was out of the way. I hadn't thought much about what would happen if I wasn't down there to open the door and invite him in, but without knowing he was a vampire, of course they didn't hesitate to invite him in.

There was a knock on my doorway to pull me out of my thoughts, and standing in it was none other than Jeremy himself, wearing a soft smile as he leaned against it, folding his arms over his chest.

"You gonna hide out here forever?" he asked.

I shook my head and turned back for my closet, remembering that I stood barefoot on the floor in my bedroom. There were a couple different pairs of shoes I could've worn with this dress, but boots weren't really an option. There was one particular pair of heels I had that I had worn for long periods of time that hadn't hurt my feet even a little bit.

They looked perfect with this dress even, the white Mary Jane heels embellished with silver designs that kinda threw back to the flappers in the twenties. I didn't know if Kol even knew anything about the twenties, but _I_ had always loved the more vintage styles, or floral patterns. Caroline always joked that I was born in the wrong decade, and maybe I was. For one of the decade dances, I got to dress how I would've already dressed, though my hair and makeup had to be done differently.

I slipped into the heels and buckled them, my eyes moving back up to find Jeremy, whose arrogance had only grown brighter the longer he stood there. "What?"

"I guess I should've said I give it 'til the end of the week."

I rolled my eyes and grabbed my jacket off the nook on the other side of my room, as it was the only place safe from all the clothes that had been taken out of my closet. "Speaking of the other night, what about what we talked about?"

He tilted his head back, towards his bedroom. "Got it covered. Now I'm just waiting for Caroline to leave. Wouldn't want her, you know, being Caroline."

Though I laughed, that was an unfortunate truth he would have to deal with. Caroline wanted nothing less than the absolute best for each of us, as we wanted for her, but if someone hurt her friend in any way, she held onto that for way longer than normal.

It was why she couldn't understand why Elena was developing feelings for Damon, in the middle of all the stuff happening with Stefan. Damon had hurt a lot of people in different ways.

We had all done our share of hurting and killing. Damon just didn't hold onto it the same as the rest of us.

That was one thing I could say at least. I had never killed anyone, not even a vampire. The people around me made sure I didn't get put in the situation where I had to, even a vampire. We didn't know if that would trigger the curse or not, and that was a risk we weren't going to take.

The heels were far too loud as I made my way down the cornered staircase, moving faster than I probably should have. The longer I took, the longer my friends would have to make this unbearably embarrassing, and there was no telling what they had said or done while I was upstairs with Jeremy.

At the sight of Kol, the perfection in front of me made my body jolt, almost falling down the remaining steps, but instead, my steps slowed down, one hand gripping the sturdy banister beside me.

Kol always showed up to school well dressed, and I imagined the time that he had been daggered, the clothes he wore would've been considered nice and fashionable. It didn't take him any time at all to seamlessly work himself into the modern culture, clothes included, but tonight, he was just stunning.

Dressed in a fitted black blazer, with a dark blue button-up that clung to him perfectly, he wore a pair of black slim dress pants and black lace-up boots, to accent the dark and absolutely sexy look well. It was as if each article of clothing had been handmade for him specifically, though there wasn't time for that at all.

Kol must've noticed all of my friends and sister eyeing him the way they were, but it didn't seem to faze him. It probably had a lot to do with the thousand years he had been alive; surely women eyed him like that more than once over the centuries.

Instead, he was eyeing _me_ like that, with less deviousness and dark desires splashed underneath it all. Right now, all he seemed to have on his mind was how I looked, and though he didn't expressly state it, the glow in his eyes was the polar opposite of disappointment.

My heart began racing in my chest, pounding so hard against my ribcage that it made it hard to breathe, but I pushed forward, reminding myself that there was an incredible night ahead of me that I might miss if I just stood here like this.

I had all night to look at him, as he had all night to look at me.

"So, I have absolutely no idea what you have planned," I said, but as I did, my feet began moving down the remaining stairs, my four inch heels putting me around the same level as I had been the day we met. "But I hope I'm dressed appropriately."

He nodded, but the movement was very subtle, as his eyes were still glued on me, moving away from my face to study everything about what I wore. "I don't think you could've dressed more perfectly, darling." He held his hand out for me to take, and after one final deep breath, that was what I did. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yes." With my jacket hung over my arm, I had to let him go so I could slide into it, and out of the corner of my eye, the silver bag in Elena's hand caught my attention. "Yes, right. Thanks."

She handed me the silver clutch and gave me a wry smile. "Have fun you two. Remember what we told you."

The reminder of what they had said, _"At least make him work for it,"_ had me rolling my eyes all the way out the door, with Kol following behind me without hesitation. He opened his mouth to say something, but the sound of squealing on the other side of the door stopped him.

The brisk fall air stung as the blood began pooling underneath the skin of my face, turning the pale skin a bright red surely. "Holy shit. Please ignore them."

A breath of a laugh pushed out of his lips, which were curled into a rather large smile that had a strange absence of arrogance, but he didn't say anything, only took my hand and led me to the end of the driveway, towards the curb where his BMW i8 was waiting.

After seeing him get in it the other day, I had to figure out what kind it was, the curiosity getting the better of me once again.

I really needed to work on that.

Over the course of the few days we had spent in school, Kol openly mentioned that he wasn't a gentleman, that he didn't know the first thing about how to act properly or treat a person without seeming rude or arrogant.

Yet as we approached the car, he pulled open the butterfly door and held my hand up, to help me get inside, and he waited there until every piece of me was nestled inside the warmth of the soft leather seats so he could close the door back.

If that wasn't a proper gentleman, what exactly was?

Somehow, Kol seemed to remember that my sister and her friends were probably watching us leave out the window, so he walked around to the other side at a completely human pace.

His eyes found me the moment he got inside and closed the door, and they were absolutely shining again, similar to how they had when we said goodbye at school yesterday. "Actually, I think I'm going to enjoy their love for me while it lasts. They're sure to hate me when they find out who I am."

"Maybe not."

Deep down, despite the optimist in me trying to stay positive, I knew he was right. There was no way I'd ever be able to get them to see things my way.

They wouldn't remember those good qualities they saw in Kol. They would only see them as lies told to make me fall for him.

Unless I told them the truth—that I knew who he was because I was the one who let him out of the coffin.

* * *

 **A/N: So I got a couple more subscribers to this story, so I decided to go ahead and post another chapter. Although I would love to hear from you guys! I'd like to hear what you think about Kol and Darcy. :)**

 **The lyrics at the beginning of the chapter are from the song _Fresh Start Fever_ by You Me at Six.**

 **Read, review, and enjoy. :)**


	7. 06: Italian

"I wanna let go, and fall for you  
And when it gets rough, be your parachute.  
I wanna do the things that you only read about.  
Are you ready?

I'm done with small town politics.  
I need to make my way to where the action is.  
I'm done with it, so the question is,  
Are you coming with?  
'Cause baby, if you like, I'll take you there."

* * *

"So Thursday, when you were asking me all those questions that didn't make sense, was this why?"

The interior of the restaurant Kol had brought us to in Richmond, La Grotta Ristorante, was almost the most ideal place for a first date, or at least for us. Italian food was my absolute favorite, which Kol had figured out with odd questions that didn't make much sense out of context, but seeing it now, he was just trying to figure out what my favorite kind of food was without outright asking.

Despite being a rather fancy place, it wasn't as stiff and formal as some I had walked past before, or been to once—dinner with my parents and some of Dad's colleagues. The tables were all covered with a white table cloth, decorated with artfully folded napkins and silverware for each seat with dim lighting all around. The chairs were comfortable, but they reminded me of old curtains or rugs, with a vintage twist that helped piece together the entire aura of the room.

To me, this was the most ideal place for a first date with anyone.

A wry smirk began twisting onto his lips, those perfectly shaped eyebrows rising, but he didn't get a chance to respond, as our waitress came over with menus and her pad ready to get our drink orders.

This was where things felt a bit out of place, or at least I did. When it came to dating, I had no idea how I was supposed to act or what to even consider getting. All I knew was that I liked Italian food, and my mom had let me taste some of her red wine one night when she made chicken parmesan. It was amazing, the way the two flavors mixed together.

"I think we'll start off with a bottle of the Stags Leap Cabernet." Kol's eyes moved away from me, up to the waitress, and he grabbed onto her eyes with his. "You checked our ID, and we are both, of course, twenty-one."

The waitress blinked a few times before a wide smile pulled onto her lips. "Thank you two for showing me your ID. I'll go grab that bottle for you, and then I'll be back for your orders. Would you like any appetizers?"

His eyes found me again. "What do you think, darling?"

My face scrunched a bit, but I shook my head. "I'm good."

The waitress smiled at me as well and left, leaving us alone again to take in the atmosphere and figure out what we were gonna order. It took me less than a minute, and when my eyes peeled away from the menu, I found Kol already watching me, his menu still placed on the table in front of him.

"What?" I mumbled, and my cheeks flushed again, hot enough that I wondered if the makeup Caroline had put on my face would hide it.

"You are so exquisite," he murmured, but he kept himself pressed back against his seat. "When I first saw you, I didn't even realize that you were a doppelgänger. The things that set you apart really set you apart, so much that I . . . I'm sorry. You're far too beautiful; it's distracting."

My eyes fell away from him as a breath pushed through my lips, reminding me of the rose pink that Caroline had painted on them, in the form of lipstick that she promised wouldn't come off, winking as she said it. At the time, I rolled my eyes, but it felt different now. Actually sitting here, away from the world of Mystic Falls, the idea that our night might end with even just a kiss was definitely a possibility. Assuming he didn't, you know, make a complete ass of himself before it was all over with.

Somehow, I knew that wasn't going to happen.

There was nothing I could say in response to what he said, other than keep the elaborate compliments coming. While they were beyond sweet—and genuine, coming from _Kol_ —this was a date, meant to get to know one another better and explore the possibility of more than just friendship.

The possibility of it all was what got me to agree, what it _could_ be. If Kol was willing to be different, at least try to be better, who was I to judge the past?

"It must be handy getting whatever you want," I said, in an attempt to change the subject away from me. "Or at least having the ability to get what you want."

"The things that come easy are meaningless," he said, but his piercing stare hadn't left me, the gold within his irises melting and warming what was otherwise brown, sending a chill down my spine and all the way to the ends of my toes—a chill that left a lingering warmth. "It's the things you have to work for that matter."

"What have you ever had to work for?" My eyebrows rose. "Shit, that sounded super judgmental. I just meant, what is something you've worked for?"

"I haven't worked for anything before," he admitted. "That is, until now."

Lying to myself about this anymore was impossible, with a statement so utterly simple with such complex meaning behind it. He had never really talked much about what made him enroll in school or follow me around all day, other than jokes about properly thanking me for what I had done for him or getting to know me after I did him that favor without caring about the consequences. It was stated more than once that he found me beautiful and attractive, but this was more than mere attraction.

What had been easy to disguise as a bit of fun, after spending over a century daggered in a coffin, suddenly wasn't so easy. This was something much more genuine, something that resembled actually feelings for someone. Obviously it wasn't love, but maybe the connection that I felt to him wasn't so one-sided, as I had let myself believe.

"So if you've never worked for anything, does that mean you haven't been in love?" I asked, and while I wanted to get the subject on anything else but this, this question seemed important. Love was one of the most powerful things in the world. It was completely life changing, but if someone had gone a thousand years without it, the things he did were easy to understand. That didn't make them justified, but it gave me a lot more understanding of it all.

"I haven't," he said, and as my eyes widened a bit, his own eyebrows raised. "What? Is that so surprising?"

"A thousand years is a long time to go without love," I said, nodding a bit as my eyes locked in his again.

His tongue slid across his lips as his eyes darted away, most likely checking for our waitress. When he didn't see her, he decided it was safe to go on with whatever he planned to say.

"I used to see love as a weakness," he said. "When you are given eternity, with nothing known that can kill you, having something that you love and cherish gives you a weak point that people could exploit, people just like my brother."

"While I do agree that your brother is a sadist who very much enjoys exploiting people's weaknesses, you can't honestly tell me that you really believe love is weakness," I said, a breath following after the words. "Love is the most powerful thing in the world."

The smile came back onto his lips, but there wasn't much more he could say, as the waitress was approaching with the bottle of wine he had ordered and two wine glasses. All he managed to get out was, in a soft but warm voice, "That remains to be seen."

The waitress came and poured the wine into the glasses for us, leaving the rest on the table as Kol requested, and she took our orders. There wasn't any conversation while she was there, as that was just rude, but Kol seemed very surprised when he heard me ordering my food. In normal terms, I got chicken parmesan, but here, it was petto di pollo potentina, which he got as well.

As she walked away, I looked wryly up at him as I took a sip of my wine, which had a much sweeter taste than I expected. Most expensive wines were very bitter and dry, but this was perfect, with a hint of both cherry and plum along with the rich grape flavor. The smell of black cherry and plum was vibrant, drowning out the grape entirely.

"You're full of surprises, Darcy Gilbert," he informed me.

I set my glass down and rubbed my tongue along my bottom lip, getting the small bit of wine off and mixing it with the harsh taste of lipstick. "You just underestimated my love for Italian food. I could seriously eat pizza three times a day every day."

"Believe it or not, I have never tried pizza," he said. "It came around not long before I was daggered most recently, and we don't eat often."

My eyebrows rose. "How does that work exactly?"

"We can eat, just like you," he said, but he took a sip of his wine now as well. "It isn't necessary, but we don't have to throw it back up later. We're dead, but that doesn't mean our bodies stop working as a human's does."

I nodded. "Alright, makes sense. I wondered how it all worked." One of the strands of curls left out of the bun slid down into my face, but I quickly tucked it back, keeping it out of my eyes as to not annoy myself with it. "What's your favorite color?"

He laughed again, this time much more vibrantly. "So is that what we're doing? Asking trivial questions that, in the grand scheme of things, don't matter?"

I shrugged. "Maybe to you, but from the way I see it, even the most trivial things are important, if they're trivial things about the right person."

The lids of his round eyes pulled open a bit more, his eyebrows rising up ever so slightly, and those soft pink lips fell open, no words finding their way out for a few moments. His mind had picked out a response to his question, and what I had said wasn't it, at least from the surprise in his eyes

"Green," he finally said.

"Wow. I expected red."

He scoffed. "Of course you did."

My teeth sank into my bottom lip, just a twinge of pressure that helped keep my head on right. Under his smoldering gaze, it was easy to get lost, especially when paired with that charming smile.

"What is your favorite place you've ever been?" I asked.

"I've been many places, and I'm sure none of them look the same as they did when I was there, but my favorite has always been most of Europe," he said. "The true beauty of nature there is something I can't explain, or at least it was before we came to the United States a century ago. You'd have to see it for yourself, if it hasn't all been destroyed by now."

There were so many places in the world, places full of manmade beauty, but he was talking about nature, the things that were beautiful all on their own.

"How do you calm yourself down when you're angry?" I asked, without lingering on one topic too long. There were so many things to learn about one another, especially since he had a thousand years under his belt to learn about himself, so on trivial things, dwelling on one too long was senseless.

He shrugged. "Usually, I kill someone, but I get the feeling that isn't an appropriate way to calm down. I'll have to stick around you to figure out what is appropriate."

The last part of his answer set off a fit of reactions in my body, from a fluttering heart to many cages of butterflies in my stomach, and the only way to calm myself down was to take a large sip of wine, keep my eyes on anything _but_ his face. For now, my wine glass was the perfect thing to look at.

"Books or music?"

"Music," he answered, much faster than I expected. "It's my favorite part of modern times so far. I can bring music with me anywhere I go."

"Which historical figure wasn't as amazing as everyone thinks?" I asked.

"Pretty much all of them," he said, and he finished off the wine in his glass before continuing. "History is written by the victors, so of course it's written in the victor's favor, painting them in a good light which they actually shouldn't be seen in. No one comes to mind who is viewed as they really were. What odd talent do you have?"

He so seamlessly went from answering a question to asking one that it took me a few seconds to realize he _had_ asked me a question. The answer took even longer, as I didn't have any odd talents that came to mind right off the top of my head.

"I can touch my nose with my tongue," I finally said. "Does that count?"

His smile turned into a grin, those eyes a bit smug now. "Wow. What places do you want to see?"

"I've always wanted to go to Rome," I said. "The history and culture there must be incredible. Greece maybe, and then there's Ireland. I've heard it's just stunning there, with nice drunks everywhere. I've been told I'm a happy drunk, amongst other things, so I'd fit in nicely."

"Other things?" His eyebrows rose while he watched me finish off what was in my wine glass, the right side of his mouth curling into a smirk. "What other things?"

I rubbed my lips together. "Mmm. You know, the usual stuff. Elena gets really emotional when drunk, but I'm just bubbly and energetic and, you know, extremely horny."

"That sounds like fun."

It would've been easy to give him some sassy remark back, or even a sultry one. There were so many different ways I could've responded back to that, but all I wanted to do was say, _"With you, it would be."_

The waitress arrived with our food, however, and that particular conversation just faded away as she gave us both our plates and refilled our wine glasses for us, though most would've left us to do it ourselves, since the bottle was ours.

There wasn't much said as we both took our first bites of the dish in front of us. Though Kol's eyes widened, a hint of surprise lingering there, his gaze remained set on me, waiting for some kind of reaction to what he said.

Any reaction I had would lead us down the wrong path.

"Have you ever thought about becoming a vampire?" he finally asked, after we had both gotten our first tastes swallowed down and chased with a sip of the wine. The silence hadn't been uncomfortable, but something else needed to be said to get us away from the gutter we were standing beside.

"Every day," I admitted. "It'd make life a lot easier. Your brother wants to use my sister and me to make more hybrids, and it'd be a lot easier for me if he couldn't do that. I never can be, though."

His eyebrows knit together. "Why?"

I bit down on my bottom lip again and looked to the refilled wine glass in front of me. "My situation is a bit complicated. Aside from all the abuse he would inflict on Elena alone . . . there's just something that gets in the way of it."

"You don't have to be so cryptic," he reminded me. "I hate my brother as much as any of you, so if there's something you don't want him to know, you don't have to worry about him hearing it from me."

"There's a couple things he doesn't know about me, actually," I sighed, sinking back into the comforting embrace of the seat while my eyes drifted away again, over towards a table with a lady wearing a rather strange looking fur shrug, her hair curled so tightly that it almost looked like the rollers were still in it. "One of them, some of my friends don't even know, but I guess . . . I guess I trust you with the least dangerous thing for now."

"I suppose I'll take it." He leaned forward just a bit, getting himself closer while still avoiding the food in front of him. "Tell me something about yourself, Darcy. Something my brother will never know."

"I doubt I'll be able to keep this part a secret forever," I admitted, but my words were followed by a deep breath. "Elena and I are only half sisters, and whoever my father is was a witch."

His eyes widened. "You're a witch?"

I nodded. "I'm a weird witch at that. I don't have access to magic on my own. I have to pull it from other things, like the blood of a vampire for example. Bonnie put a barrier spell up to keep me from interrupting the ritual where Klaus sacrificed Elena, and I was able to drain the magic from the spell away, to use it for whatever spell I wanted to do. I can actually use my own blood as a source, which I never actually realized I _was_ using. It's been a lot of trial and error, figuring all of this out, but what I thought was me being a super weak witch was actually my magical side not being able to use magic like a normal witch. My blood is limited to human capabilities."

"That is absolutely fascinating," he murmured. "In a thousand years, I've never met any witch who uses magic that way, and I've met plenty of witches. I respect witches a great deal, and magic is endlessly fascinating to me. I was the only one of my siblings to actually use my powers before turning."

"Was it hard?" I asked, but I began getting a bite ready on my fork, to take once I got the rest of my question out. "Having magic one day and not the next?"

"Harder than you would think," he said, and he sighed. "It was actually a pretty dark time in my life. I had been what my mother liked to refer to as a child prodigy, getting in touch with my magic from a fairly young age. To have it ripped away from me, without even getting the option to stay human like my mother, I was pretty angry about it for a long time, longer than I probably should've been."

My eyebrows furrowed. "I heard the story about when you guys were turned. Did none of you know?"

"I knew my mother was doing _something_ , as she had just lost her youngest son and was very distressed about it, but I had no idea what she was doing would rip away my magic," he said. "I don't think she did either."

"Do you miss it?"

"I do," he said, and his eyes fell away from me now, towards the food on his plate that he had only taken a single bite out of. "It's one of the things I miss most about being human. Eternity has plenty of perks, believe me, but that was my favorite part about myself. I had to learn to like myself for other reasons, and over time, I became all that I had."

There was so much pain in Kol's life, pain that no one else seemed to care to listen to. Even the rest of his siblings, who were daggered whenever Klaus got pissed off at them, didn't seem to care that he was hurting, that he was extremely lonely despite the arrogance he seemed to put off.

That was very real; Kol was definitely arrogant, and pretty superficial, but there was so much more to him than that. Deep down, underneath the attractive face was a lonely heart.

A thousand years without love was far too long. Even if this couldn't last forever, I was determined to show him what love really was, at least once.

Maybe once he realized that love was strength, he would be willing to look for it other places.

* * *

 **A/N: I woke up to three more reviews and a lot of new subscribers! I'm so glad you guys are enjoying this story! It's been fun for me to write, and I'm happy that you guys enjoy it as well.**

 **The lyrics at the beginning are from the song _Parachute_ by Neck Deep.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy! Enjoying what you're reading is the most important part to me, so I hope that y'all continue to enjoy it. :)**


	8. 07: The Art of the Rich

"I am the queen of overthinking.

That's why I'm always drinking,

Something to get me out of my head . . .

. . . I think I like you, babe.

You get me out, right out of my head.

You save me from myself,

So let me get in yours."

* * *

"It looks like a triangle."

"It's definitely just a triangle."

My eyes tore away from the colorful painting in front of us, towards the man who was much more fascinating than the work of art in front of me. Of course I knew that someone had put a lot of time and effort into this, and I appreciated that aspect of it. I just wasn't an art connoisseur.

Kol was already looking back down at me, a ghost of a smile touching his lips while his eyes studied my every reaction to this place, which he had admitted he wasn't sure if we should even visit. There was a special show going on tonight, and what would half an hour hurt?

He took ahold of my hand, interlacing each of his fingers with mine as he gave my arm a gentle pull. I was definitely done looking at the picture of the triangle, so I allowed him to pull me along with him.

The next work of art in the exhibit was a statue of a modern man, completely nude, doing nothing but standing there. He wasn't like most molded statues I had seen in textbooks and in pictures; he was more "normal" in shape, with a bit of a beer belly and scruffy hair.

The most notable feature was the same as other statues of the same nude nature as this one—the extremely small penis.

"Why do the men always have such small dicks?"

"I've always wondered that myself," he informed me, but he let go of my hand so he could fold his arms over his chest, touching the bottom of his chin to feign concentration on the statue in front of him. "It wasn't like people from that time actually had penises that small."

I gestured to the statue in front of us. "Even modern art depicts men with dicks that small."

"I feel bad for a statue," he said.

I snorted. "I feel bad for the statue's wife."

The laugh that came out of his mouth was loud, much louder than was appropriate for the setting. He realized that around the same time the people nearby looked over at him, their eyes dark and threatening as they looked between the two of us.

If they only knew who they were glaring at.

Despite Kol's usually short temper, he didn't pay the people around us any mind and instead smirked down at me, his eyes glowing with both amusement and joy that helped paint the current mood we both felt.

The two of us walked away from the statue, into the next room with paintings lining a lot of the walls. Each painting had their own section, closed off with velvet ropes to keep things in order. If someone wanted to observe a specific painting, there was a place for them to do so without getting in the way of people who wanted to just pass by.

There was an older couple standing within the ropes at the next painting we came to, looking at it in marvel, but they were clearly seeing something that I wasn't. To me, the "art" looked like nothing more than a paint swatch, the things you buy at Lowe's to try and pick out the color you want. The colors of the painting varied, from pinks to blues to greens, but it was just boxes of different colors lined up, to make a rectangle full of different colors of different shades.

Before Kol could stop moving there, I pulled him along and towards the next one, which was actually rather beautiful. There wasn't much to tell about it, other than it was a bunch of curved lines of different colors woven together to create something pretty. It was probably some form of expression, with deeper meaning than just a bunch of curved lines, but I wasn't an art connoisseur. I couldn't find even the slightest meaning of it.

"Art has really taken a turn for the worst."

Kol didn't say that until we had arrived at the next "painting," which was actually just three blank canvases hung up side by side.

How was that art? They didn't do anything but buy canvas that they didn't actually use. I didn't like being insensitive or rude, but what was that? Why was it hanging in a museum?

The art in this room was just too sad, with only the one curved line picture being even remotely a work of art. The rest were things like a single blue line or two completely painted canvases of different colors hanging next to one another.

"Here's a random question," I said, after hearing a troubled sigh pass through Kol's lips. "Do you guys ever celebrate holidays?"

"You would think so, as the origins of modern day Christmas are actually really dark and filled with death," he murmured, and when his eyes tore away from the paintings, they seemed to shimmer with excitement when they landed on me. "The origins of Thanksgiving aren't what modern day cultures believe either."

I held a hand up, which stopped him from going into whatever he was about to inform me. "You know what? Don't ruin my holidays for me. I can believe that everyone in history wasn't the person they were portrayed to be, but don't ruin my good times."

"As you wish." He let out a breath of a laugh, his lips curling into a large, toothless smile while he watched me stare at the painting in front of us now. "Which holiday is your favorite?"

"I like them both for different reasons," I admitted, around the same time he reached out to grab onto my hand again. This time, it wasn't because he had to pull me along out of a room, but just because he wanted to. We were already leaving the room without hardly any real art in it, headed to the next one, so grabbing my hand was entirely because he wanted to hold my hand. It was a nice feeling, one that I reciprocated. "Thanksgiving is nice because people take one day to appreciate the things that they have, things that they usually take for granted. Christmas is a time where people are actually nice to one another, at least for one day. I wish people were like this all the time, but since they're not, I appreciate the two days that they are. Then, of course, there's also amazing food to look forward to on both holidays."

"You're so timeless," he murmured, and even though we stepped into a new room of art, his eyes didn't tear away from me. With him looking at me like that, it was impossible to look at the art myself.

Everything about him was beyond reality, the perfect sculpt of his face paired with his personality that had been hand chiseled over the span of a millennium. He knew how to be charming, but this was more than charming. This was more than someone trying to pick someone up or have a bit of fun for a while.

He was risking everything to get to know me, taking a chance that he had never dared to take in a thousand years.

What was so special about me? Was it because I was timeless, as he said?

The art in the room we came into all seemed to have a little more effort put into it, but it was getting harder and harder to look at the art. Any time I noticed Kol watching the art, I took that chance to look at _him_ , at each detail of his perfect face without a trace of a single flaw in sight.

Some people might've considered the dimple in his chin a flaw, but I wasn't one of those people. To me, dimples were a cute added feature, just like freckles.

One day, I might get used to the perfection that was Kol, but today was not that day.

* * *

The more Kol and Darcy seemed to explore the art gallery, the more their criticism of the art seemed to rub people the wrong way. Before long, the elderly couple that was walking ahead of them began threatening to call security if they didn't appreciate the art quietly.

Normally, Kol imagined he would either compel them to shut up or kill them, but he was on a date with Darcy. That kind of barbarism would surely make her change her mind about him.

Despite his past of not caring in the slightest, he wanted to care, to learn what it meant to be human and decent. He didn't imagine he would change completely, as every part of him wanted to rip the dress off of Darcy and have his way with her, but he was at least playing the part of a gentleman well, as he escorted her out of the art museum and back towards his car.

Darcy wore the most beautiful smile, the most stunning piece of art Kol had seen all night. He couldn't imagine why anyone overlooked her, seeing more beauty in her sister than the perfection that she was. The two different colors of her eyes had been the first part of her to grab his attention, with her perfectly sculpted body and face following shortly after. In all of his years amongst the living, he had never met someone with two different colored eyes, or with hair the same color as hers. She called it dull brown, but there was something enduring about it, something that made her looked as timeless as she dressed.

It was as if nature intended for her to be immortal, as her heart already was. The woman that she was, exquisite and unique, was meant to live eternity, making the world a better place as she went along.

Suddenly, that was all Kol could see. She mentioned that things complicated that, but if he could get his brother to leave her sister alone, what complications were there? Eventually, she wouldn't mind losing her magic, since she hadn't even begun to tap into it more than a few simple spells that drained her to use.

Kol's mind was on the idea of an eternity with this woman, even if he seemed as if he was on this moment with her. He pulled open the door of the car he had gotten, mostly on impulse. When he made the decision to stick around town, to get to know the woman who he felt strangely drawn to, he was looking for something to drive, something that stood out without too much flair, and that was what he found.

As he watched her duck down underneath the door, to step inside, something underneath her eye caught his attention. He wasn't one to point out such things usually, but an eyelash wasn't something to be embarrassed about.

"One moment," he murmured, and he dropped his thumb down, rubbing it along the soft skin underneath her eye. The eyelash caught on his finger immediately, but his finger was stuck, as the delicate skin caught hold of him in a way he wasn't prepared for.

He imagined she would be soft, and the warmth underneath her skin from the blood flowing within wasn't surprising to him either. There was no way for him to prepare for how soft or warm she was, as if she was feverish. The blood seemed to pool underneath her skin where his finger touched, and Kol could hear the sounds of her heart taking flight inside her chest.

Her breathing became stuttered as well, those mystifying eyes of a different color locking within his and ripping away all thoughts that usually lingered in the back of his mind.

What was it about her that made him forget what he was? Until this moment, it hadn't even occurred to him that there was no insatiable bloodlust around her. He had been so wrapped up in the time with her that he had actually, for a time, forgotten that he was a vampire, even when they talked about things of that nature, or the errors in history that Kol had been witness to—because he was a vampire.

She made him forget the darker parts of himself, and he couldn't imagine giving that feeling up, not just yet. The future ahead of them looked bleak, with all the uncertainty that lay ahead because of his brother who went to all sorts of horrible lengths to get whatever he wanted, but right now, all he saw was this moment, this intimate touch as he stood not even an inch from her, those amazing eyes looking right into his as he stood there, frozen in time.

"Make a wish."

Everything she did was a reminder to Kol that she was eternal. An old tradition, dating back to the mid nineteenth century, that had always seemed silly and trivial to Kol suddenly was absolutely beautiful.

Though he wanted to stare at her forever, Kol closed his eyes and forgot about the world around them, forgot that he was completely wrong for her. That was all he wanted though, the only thing there was to wish for.

He wanted her, an eternity with her, full of endless possibilities and beautiful potentials for them to explore. That was his wish: eternity with her.

The warm air that she pushed out of her lips, against his finger which had the eyelash still on it, tickled against his skin, touching every nerve inside of his body. As a vampire, being intimate with someone felt better, as everything was heightened, but this was more than intimacy with someone Kol found attractive, a night of pleasure to get him through to the next day.

This was everything he had always feared but deep down wondered what it could actually be.

This was the beginning of a love that Kol knew would either make or break him, with the only determining factor of it being whether love was the greatest strength or weakness a person could have.

Every part of him hoped for strength.

* * *

 **A/N: You guys are all awesome! Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! It means a lot to me. :)**

 **Fun fact that I actually did a lot of research on for an old story I was working on a long time ago, twins actually can be half-siblings. I don't mean to sound rude or anything, but they can, in fact, be half-siblings. Identical twins cannot, but fraternal twins _can_. It's not common, but for example, if a woman had a threesome with two men and ends up pregnant with twins, they could have different fathers, or if she sleeps with two different men within a twenty-four to forty-eight hour time period, she could end up pregnant with half-siblings.**

 **Like I said, I'm not trying to be pretentious or anything but honest. I just thought it would be a fun fact for you guys to know. It's still an out there concept, but it _can_ happen, very rarely.**

 **Enough of my rambling. Thank you guys so much for reading this story! I was afraid people would hate it, to be honest. When I first let my little sister read one of my Kol fanfictions, which I haven't posted here and won't for many different reasons, she said, "Stop making me love Kol!"**

 **A lot of you already do love Kol as much as I do, however, but I'm glad you enjoy this story. I'm trying to keep him as in character as I can while also letting his love for a woman shape him into a better person. I don't want him to be a saint by any means; that's just not Kol Mikaelson. I don't want him to just poof be a better person, but I'm really glad you guys like it.**

 **I'll stop rambling now. Last thing, the lyrics at the beginning are from the song _Out of My Head_ by Loote. They only have three songs out now that I can find, one being a new Christmas song, but I am in love with them.**

 **As always, read, review, and most importantly, enjoy. :)**


	9. 08: Endless Possibilities

"As long as I can feel you holding on,

I won't fall, even if you said I was wrong.

I'm not perfect, but I keep trying

Cause that's what I said I would do from the start.

I'm not alive if I'm lonely,

So please don't leave."

* * *

The i8 didn't seem as if it could support the weight of two people on the hood, not without messing up the shocks. Kol didn't seem to care either way, as the place we had parked overlooked Richmond in a magical way. It was something that he wasn't going to let concern for his nice car get in the way of.

The wind made the air unforgiving, foretelling the winter to come perfectly, but I was as warm as I could be, wearing both my wool coat and Kol's blazer. He assured me that vampires don't get cold, and that was the only reason I actually took it.

For someone who wasn't a gentleman, he sure played the part well.

"What are you thinking about?"

We had been looking over Richmond in silence for a while, but it was a soothing silence. Somehow, the silence made me feel more relaxed, relaxed enough that I wasn't even remotely nervous around Kol anymore.

Silence brought us closer, showing me the true comfort I felt with him, better than words ever could.

Why was this happening if this was wrong? If Kol and I weren't compatible, if there wasn't even the slightest possibility of something more?

Surely fate wasn't _that_ unkind . . . was it?

"The future," I said, without any other answer besides the truth coming to mind. The smell of rain filled my nostrils as I pulled a sharp breath in, allowing my eyes to move away from Richmond and over to the man who had somehow weaseled his way past all logic and sanity in me.

His eyebrows pulled up, exposing more of the warmth in his eyes. "The future? That's a vast subject. It could mean anything."

"Why did we have such a magical night if that's all it would ever be?"

"Maybe to remind us that there is good in the world, that there's hope," he said, his brows furrowing now as he studied every part of my face.

I shook my head. "I can't believe that."

"Why?" he asked, but once the word came out, he let out a humorless breath of a laugh. "I forget that you're only eighteen. You haven't fully experienced how cruel life can be sometimes."

"My parents were killed after a freak accident, running them off Wickery Bridge and almost killing my sister," I said. "My entire life has been spent getting sideways glances while people whisper freak behind my back, at the same time my almost identical twin sister is basically worshiped at every turn. I guess things could always be worse than that, but maybe it's a good thing nature fucked me out of eternity."

"Eternity has so many possibilities ahead, so many different things you can learn and explore," he said, but his eyes never tore away from me. "One day, something life changing comes along and makes all the empty years and loneliness worth it."

I shook my head. "I know there's good. I know there's hope, but I can't believe that's all this is."

"What do you think this is?" he asked.

"Endless possibilities," I murmured, and even though what I wanted to say made me nervous again, talking about the real feelings that were undeniable anymore, I kept my eyes locked in his. "Forever or a fire that might burn out quickly. It's far too soon to say, but I'd like to find out."

His eyebrows furrowed. "What if we fall in love with one another?"

"Then we'll get to know what it feels like," I said, and the smile that pulled on the corners of my lips was automatic, a reflection of the bliss I felt inside. "Maybe we'll get hurt, or maybe we won't. Maybe we'll finally be able to decide who's right."

"Right about what?" he asked, but as he asked the question, his hand moved over to touch mine. It was a simple gesture, but it made the inside of my body both calm and frantic. That alone was astounding.

"If love is strength or weakness."

His eyes drifted away from mine and down to my lips, which were pressed together as my eyes moved to study his face as well.

There were many different ways I saw this night going, with both good and bad endings, but at this point, all I could see was one ending, and ending that started with a first kiss.

"So what happens now?" he whispered, with no shame about the location of his gaze. "Would you like me to take you home? Do you want to stay here longer? The night is yours, darling. We can do whatever you would like."

As he was finishing his last sentence, the softest rain drops began trickling down, freezing the side of my face before I got a chance to answer—if I even had an answer.

The night was mine . . . to do whatever I wanted. Did that mean him, too?

I never thought I'd be the girl to sleep with someone on a first date, but my time with Kol was limited. At any time, his brother could find him, or the people around me could find out who he was.

Not to mention, I _wanted_ to explore this with him, this complete and intimate relationship. Maybe with the idea of forever in mind, jumping straight into bed was a bad idea, as it left nowhere for the relationship to go.

All it could do is grow, into something deeper and more eternal.

The rain picked up, and Kol jumped off the hood, onto the forest clearing he had parked at. He was on my side of the car in a second, holding a hand towards me to help me off.

The dress on the slick, now wet paint of his car caused some resistance when sliding off, but I got off. He pulled the door open for me, and I could feel him pulling on my arm, an attempt to get me into the car.

Another idea occurred to me, in the moment, and it was too sappy and cliché to ignore it. If I was gonna have the best first date possible, I had to take every opportunity to make it that way, the kinda first date that would make my friends jealous.

When I was grey and old, married to a man who took care of me, I could always remember my first date, with an Original vampire.

I squared my shoulders and looked up at him, loving the way his eyebrows furrowed in confusion as I remained outside of the car. "You know what? Let's be cliché."

I expected him to ask me what I meant, but I didn't give him the chance. My hands grabbed onto the side of his face, along that chiseled jawline, and with enough force to get him on my level, I pulled his face down to mine. With my clumsy, human nature, I pulled his nose right into mine, and though my cheeks burned, with the cold rain stinging against the skin, I didn't let it stop me from correcting my error.

Just moments before my lips found his, I took in the scent of his cologne, the soft skin underneath my fingertips. If this was going to be nothing more than a memory someday, I wanted to remember every part of it, from the way his skin felt like velvet to the way his cologne took me to a gutter nearby—a hint of woody flavor mixed with whatever they put in men's cologne to make it smell so damn good. If it had a name, it was probably just straight sex appeal.

He didn't understand why I was hesitating, so as the lids of my eyes fluttered closed, he closed the distance between us and pressed his lips to mine.

My mind didn't even have time to process how the kiss made me feel, though my body began reacting in less than a moment. Just as I started to burn in the most painless of ways, he pulled away from me.

It felt like he had choked me, ripped away my ability to breathe when he pulled away, but the pain in my shoulders that followed shoved away any protests I might've had, with Kol's hands pressing me back into his car.

The look in his eyes was completely new, though it resembled the way he watched me Thursday, commenting that the dress I wore was more form fitting than the others I had worn thus far. That was all he said, but his eyes had a deviousness that implied more than even his words did, setting off a set of reactions that, at the time, I hated.

Now, seeing that look but amplified, with more than just his imagination running wild, there was an undeniable desire curling down to my pelvis. Suddenly, my hair wasn't the wettest part of my body.

His lips grabbed onto mine again, taking control himself so there was no more awkward bumping of noses. Suddenly, I understood every reference I'd ever read in stories or seen in movies. I understood each strange reaction, each person that seemed to just melt away.

Every part of me dissolved into him, in the most innocent of ways for the time, and I thought that touch had been magical before: magic was redefined with his lips against mine.

My body was no longer pressed back into the car, as his arms slid around me and absolutely crushed me into him. This was just the second taste, but it was enough to make me realize that I could never really get enough of this, enough of this sensation with _him_.

Kissing Damon, amid our drunken night, had been fun. It had been wild and something crazy and spontaneous, but this was so much more than that. It was true passion, something that I wondered if other people got to experience before in their lives.

Every other kiss in my life was wrong. This was the only thing that was right.

The blood coursing through my veins was throbbing, with both passion and desire, and my heart suddenly felt as if it might explode. Air was coming into my lungs, through my nose, but it felt like I wasn't breathing, in the best of ways.

Until he ripped his lips away from me, giving me a sense of emptiness that I couldn't explain, I didn't realize the warmth I could feel throughout my body was all just in my head. The truth was, the October rain had chilled me right to my core, and when his lips were no longer on mine, it was painfully obvious just how cold I was.

"Shit, Darcy, please get in," he murmured. "I could stay here all night doing this, but not at your expense."

My clothes weren't completely soaked yet, but my hair was pretty wet, with water dripping down my face and probably ruining my makeup. On most occasions, I would've been worried about being on a date with ruined makeup, but my first date was with an Original vampire who could probably see every flaw through the makeup anyways.

He had the door closed behind him the moment he got in, and now that we were safe in the warmth of his car, which he turned back on, he could allow himself to express the things inside that the kiss had brought out.

It made sense to be everything to me, but that was the same things I saw in his eyes, the things I felt inside. It was as if it was his first kiss, his first real experience like that, and I couldn't begin to explain that.

He had mentioned never falling in love before, but was there really no one before that he even wanted to do more than sleep with?

The idea that I was a first for him was euphoric, and it was the reason I didn't give him a chance to ask what now. It was the reason I climbed into his lap, despite the small space between his body and the steering wheel.

His breaths were very sharp while I bent down, looking for the buttons on the side to move the seat back. They were down there alright, but it took Kol working with me to push it all the way back into the back of the car for me to have the room I needed.

His lips grabbed onto mine the second I was situated and comfortable, and his hands were everywhere on my body, holding me against his own like he was afraid to let go. That was how I felt, with my lips against his like this. If I stopped kissing him, would he disappear? Would I wake up from this dream?

It hadn't really felt like a dream before, even if it was nothing I ever dared to hope for, but right now, in this world changing moment of kisses and passion, a dream was the only way I could explain it.

Wouldn't that be horrible? Waking up the night after I had let the Originals out of the coffins, only to find that none of it had been real.

To be honest, I probably wouldn't get out of bed ever again.

Just to remind myself that this was very real, I pulled away from him and allowed myself to catch my breath, though my lips were still parted and very close to his. There was a fire in his eyes that I hadn't seen yet, not as brightly as it burned, but it only ignited the fire within me.

"I was told to make you work for it," I breathed, the skin of my lips barely caressing his with each word.

His hands stopped roaming over my body and instead gripped down wherever they were, which just so happened to be my lower back. "Mmm. Am I gonna have to work for it?"

"Let's go back to your place and see."

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys! You are all so amazing. I wasn't expecting this kind of response to my story, but I'm glad y'all like it!**

 **The lyrics at the beginning are from the song _Perfect_ by Hedley. They're another new band I've found recently that I really love.**

 **Anyways, I have up to chapter 24 written, though the outline for this entire story is already all done. It's a total of one prologue, thirty chapters, and one epilogue, with a sequel planned. I think this will be the last chapter I post today, however, so I can make sure to stay ahead and have more to put up for you guys. I'm notorious for stopping mid-story, and I don't wanna do that. I wanna get started on the second part hopefully tomorrow or the day after that, but I think I'm gonna post only one or two chapters a day.**

 **Enough of my rambling. Last thing I will say is that the next chapter gets a bit steamy, and I apologize in advanced if my smut is too detailed or horrible. I'm not the best at writing it, and when my little sister read this chapter, she actually told me, "Wow. That was . . . detailed." So I tried to make it not so in your face but still hot at the same time? I'm rambling again, but smut comes in the next chapter.**

 **Read, review, and enjoy. :)**


	10. 09: Surge

"Heaven only knows where you've been,  
But I don't really need to know.  
I know where you're gonna go.  
On my heart, where you're resting your head,  
And you just look so beautiful.  
It's like you were an angel.

Can I stop the flow of time?  
Can I swim in your divine?  
Cause I don't think I'd ever leave this place.

Oh, turn the lights, turn the lights down low.  
Yeah, now I'm feeling you breathing slow.  
Cause, baby, we're just reckless kids."

* * *

I hadn't put much thought into where Kol might be staying. It would've seemed silly for him to buy a house, with the circumstances the way that they were, but he bought a car—a really nice car at that.

He didn't have a house, though. As of right now, he was living out of a hotel room. It was the nicer hotel in Mystic Falls, one of two. There was more of a cozy little inn type hotel, and then there was this Holiday Inn, where Kol was probably one of the few tenants around. How Mayor Lockwood—the late Mayor Lockwood, Tyler's dad—managed to convince them to come to town, I don't think anyone will ever really know, but somehow, he convinced Holiday Inn to come to town and not make any money.

It was kinda nice, though, because Kol got to pick which room he wanted, and of course he wanted the suite. This way, I didn't have to pass anyone's judgment as I went on my way into my night of shameless desires.

Tomorrow, I wasn't going to regret what I was doing, but I imagined my friends would have their opinions about my eagerness to jump into bed. They could have their opinions; they just didn't understand.

It wasn't just because someone was giving me attention. I wasn't that desperate. Truthfully, sex had never really been such a huge deal to me, not like it was Caroline, but something about my night with Kol . . . I couldn't help it. Everything about the night had led me to this point, to the point that I didn't want to go home.

I heard the door of his hotel room closing, and I started pulling off my shoes immediately. It would've been easy to think about what I was doing, but if I thought about it, where would that lead me? To overthinking and getting nervous and changing my mind?

I wasn't going to let my insecurities ruin this for me, not tonight. I didn't necessarily have to be the most attractive person he had ever been with; I just wanted to be someone he remembered.

The wet jacket on my shoulders was suddenly falling off, with the help of the gorgeous man standing directly behind me, his hands on my shoulders to give the sleeves a tug.

"Darcy."

My eyes fluttered shut, the whisper tickling the skin just underneath my ear and sending a shiver through my body. "Hmm?"

"Do you really want to do this?"

That wasn't even remotely the question I expected, not coming from Kol. He didn't seem the type to get anything less than what he wanted, or at least those were the stories that I heard.

He wasn't the man I heard stories about, at least not around me. It was easy to lie to myself and say that it was all just a lie, that he was just playing with me, but what purpose did he have in doing that?

If I was just a game to him, I didn't imagine he would've opened up to me the way that he had.

"Of course I do." My lips were trembling, for reasons I couldn't explain, but the words came out firmly enough that I think he got the picture.

The smooth skin of his lips pressed against my neck, which I allowed to fall to the side to give him more access to the skin along there. "Mmm. You trust a vampire far too much, darling."

"If you wanted me dead, I would've already been dead," I reminded him. "Besides, wouldn't killing Elena and me be the ultimate revenge on your brother?"

"You make a fair point." He pulled his mouth away from my neck, pressing it against the back of my shoulder. "I just don't want you to feel as if you have to do anything for me."

"You said the night was mine," I said. "To do whatever I wanted to do."

His lips hovered along the skin of my shoulder, the breath caressing me in a way that was entirely new. As I stood there, simply trying to breathe, he dropped his head down.

I could feel his hands grabbing onto each side of the zipper on the back of my dress, but it was being unzipped by something else. All I could imagine now was his teeth, pulling down the zipper of my dress and getting so close to the intimate parts of me.

As the zipper reached the bottom, the dress fell from my sides, exposing the baby blue strapless bra and matching cheeky underwear that I wore underneath. The lace lining of it all had a vintage feel, resembling the older style of lace more than the modern.

I didn't know what lingerie looked like at the turn of the twentieth century, but from the way Kol knelt down, frozen underneath me, I didn't imagine it was anything like what I wore, without actually knowing that this was where the date ended up.

Of course, I prepared for every scenario, but I didn't _know_ this was where things would go.

His hands suddenly touched the inside of my thighs, starting higher up than I was prepared for. The burning I thought I felt earlier was _nothing_ compared to this, having his touch so close.

"Lie down on the bed for me."

It was a soft command, a gentle nudge into the direction we both wanted this to go, but my heart thumped in my chest. It wasn't just a single thump, but a rapid succession of them, followed by breaths that seemed to have to work their way out through a maze.

Each step I took towards the bed was careful, arching my foot just right so that my ass stuck out in just the right way. As I reached the edge of the bed, I found myself looking over my shoulder, towards the horny delight that was Kol Mikaelson.

His hands were frozen on the buttons of his shirt, his eyes wild as mine connected with them. What was meant to turn him on a bit more actually worked against me as well; seeing him looking at _me_ like this, like he hadn't seen more stunning women over the course of a millennium, it was easy to forget that this wasn't the first moment for both of us.

For me, it _was_ a first. It was more than just a drunken night between friends. This was the first step into the waters of forever.

Was that even possible? I had to have Klaus' blood to become a hybrid, have to be sired to him. He would use it against us both _hard_ , punishing his brother any chance he got because he was just that horrible.

If this wasn't forever, then maybe it was _my_ forever. Eighty or so years of life with Kol, even if he was still as stunning as he was in this moment, was the best kind of life I could imagine.

How could I hold him back that way, though? If he fell in love with me, he didn't need to fall in love with someone only to lose them. His love needed to be saved for someone who could be turned, someone who he could keep with him forever.

I was reminded of the situation I was currently in when I felt the soft skin of Kol's hand touch my side, just underneath the bottom edge of my bra, as his lips ducked down to touch the skin behind my ear.

"What's on your mind, darling?" he breathed.

"Promise me that you won't fall in love with me." It was hard to say this, as he continued to kiss delicately along the skin of my neck, but the words had to be said, even if it was the worst time in the world to say them.

"I can't do that." His arms snaked around my hips, pulling me into him as his head ducked down a bit more, finding the skin closer to my shoulder while his arms held onto me again.

The idea that Kol was already starting to fall in love with me seemed crazy, but this connection we felt towards one another _was_ crazy, in the best and worst of ways. In a lot of ways, I wondered if it was the connection of soulmates, two souls that nature itself intended to be together, but that was a terrifying thought, with things being the way that they were.

Eternity wasn't _impossible_ , but it was complicated. Complications, however, could be dealt with. Maybe Kol could help me find out how to break the sire bond; we could have Klaus turn me and then leave town until the sire bond was broken, however I would have to do that.

Maybe falling in love with each other wasn't such a bad thing.

With that thought in mind, I jumped right back in, forgetting the hesitation that had previously grabbed onto me. Now, there was nothing going to hold me back from this first moment with Kol.

Pulling myself out of his arms, I got up onto the bed and crawled my way over to the other side, arching my back the entire way, giving my hips a little extra swing as well. If I was gonna do this, might as well do it right.

A low growl ripped out of Kol as I turned and plopped down on the pillows at the head of the bed, a tiny smirk hanging on my lips. What I saw standing at the foot of the bed, however, made the smirk fall away as overpowering lust took over.

The buttons of Kol's shirt had been opened, and it hung open, exposing a chest that was far more toned than I had realized. He looked as if he had just stepped out of a fashion shoot, with the kind of definition that was usually only found in models.

Then again, most of the supernatural in this town had similar physiques, but something about Kol's exposed chest was so much more than the bulky frame of Tyler or the leaner shape of Damon.

He was hovering over me in the blink of an eye, and while I was stunned to have him move so quickly, I didn't let my surprise stop me from pulling the shirt off his shoulders, fully exposing his chest to me. The muscles on his arms rippled as they held him over me, and I found myself running a single hand down his arm, admiring each and every crevice of him.

My fingers didn't get past his elbow before his lips grabbed onto mine again, pressing my body back into the pillows while his pelvis pinned mine against the bed. There hadn't been build up when I slept with Damon, but the build-up now created a power surge through me, something I couldn't explain other than my first time enjoying sex how it was supposed to be.

Everything inside of me felt so alive, in a way that usually only happened when I drained the magic out of something. I wasn't draining the magic out of Kol, though I could feel it underneath my fingertips. Most time, it was easy to ignore it, but right now, with this moment resembling the best feeling of my life thus far, it was all I could think about.

His lips pulled away from mine again, moving down past my neck and towards the top of my bra. My breasts were barely contained anymore, the top of one nipple poking out of the top. His arms wrapped around my body, finding the latch on the back of my bra and unhooking it in a single swift motion. I don't know where it landed as he tossed it to the side, but his lips were moving along the skin of my breast that had been hidden by the bra, so I didn't give a shit where it went.

My back arched the moment his lips grabbed ahold of my nipple, and he only crushed me against him. His hand sliding up the length of my back, pressing against my spine to keep me arched into him like this . . . I felt his tongue swirl around my hardened nipple. I felt him suck on it, ever so lightly, before his teeth latched on.

My body squirmed under his, but he only let more of his weight press me into the bed. He didn't make any move to stop _touching_ me, in all the wrong and right ways.

Maybe some other time, I wouldn't have been so stir crazy, but this wasn't some other time. This was the first time we would get to experience this together, the first time it was something more than just sex.

One soft hand came up to cup my breast, the one not in his mouth, and he groped it delicately. A part of me wanted hard. A part of me wanted rough, wild, but this touch was special. As much as I wanted to get right to it, if we were gonna go ahead and take this step in the relationship, the least I could do would be enjoy it fully.

I let each touch take me somewhere new. I let his lips trailing away from my breasts and down my stomach, towards the waistline of my underwear, take me to good places. I let the rush of desire make my body squirm, but I also let it take my breath away. I didn't let it drive me crazy, except in a way that would make the actual sex so much better.

With my eyes closed, I didn't notice when he left the bed, but he was back before I even had a chance to open them. What I saw burning in his eyes as the lids of my eyes fluttered back open melted away any hope of staying calm and savoring each moment. It was wild. It was fire. It was everything I felt burning inside of me, mirrored in the liquid golden brown of his eyes.

"Kol, p-please—" I was cut off when he pulled my underwear down, allowing his nails to scrape the skin just rough enough to register that it was supposed to hurt. The pleasure, the surge of warmth I felt that made me so wet that the juices inside were already dripping down the side of my leg, took away any pain that might've actually been there.

There was a single rose in his hand, and even if I had no idea where it might've come from, the breath was ripped out of me, as if the rose was spelled to take my breath away. Very delicately, he began sliding it down my body, across my skin. The petals were cold against my skin, but it did nothing to douse the fire inside.

He didn't just move the flower in a straight path down my skin. No, he started swirling it on my stomach, rubbing it around my belly button before gliding it down the top of my crotch. It didn't go all the way, only grazed the top of my bikini line, but hot damn, did it feel good to be touched there, in any way.

He didn't expect me to rip the flower from his hands, but I loved the way he smiled when I did, a rather wicked smile that he wore perfectly. He took the hint and caught my lips with his again, and I felt relief. I felt crazy. I felt so many things that didn't possibly seem normal, or even a little bit safe for my sanity and well-being, but nothing about them felt _wrong_.

They felt too good to be anything but right.

He hooked one of my legs around his waist, and the feeling of his hand on my upper thigh, so close to where I wanted him to be . . . the softest whimper escaped my parted lips, with nothing inside of me concerned about keeping it in. I wasn't gonna exaggerate sex sounds, unless it was something we tried for fun, but if I didn't have to keep them in, I wasn't going to.

He pulled his lips away from mine again and moved his face down my neck, his lips barely brushing against the skin as he made a trail down my body.

"What is it, love?"

I hadn't meant to actually moan, but his lips against my skin, so close to where I wanted to feel him . . . I couldn't help it, even if I had really tried to stop it.

Something changed. Kol stopped kissing me. He stopped touching me altogether, and the sound of the button and zipper of his pants coming undone never sounded so sweet before.

I didn't get to see him in his naked glory, but if his toned chest was any indication, I was definitely going to like everything I saw. We had all night to see and explore, though. I just wanted to feel this first. I wanted to know exactly what it was I craved with him, this different sensation that, without actually touching, made me feel things differently than I ever had before.

"Your desire is my command," he growled just moments before I felt him slide himself in, sliding through the tight muscles with ease but with enough resistance that the walls of my sex clung to him, held on tightly so he felt me, fully, encircling his cock.

Sweet, sweet victory.

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys! The lyrics at the beginning are from the song _Lights Down Low_ by MAX. I love that song. It's beautiful. 3**

 **Okay, so, in your reviews, a lot of you have been asking questions, and I just want you to know that I swear I'm not ignoring you! I'm reading every review, but all of your questions thus far _will_ be answered within the story. I just don't wanna give anything away too soon.**

 **As always, read, review, and most definitely enjoy. :)**


	11. 10: The Dirty One

"Don't let this burn out  
Just leave your guard down  
Cause when I dream about you here,  
I wanna ride it out, ride it out.

Know when you fall down,  
I'll have my arms out,  
Cause when you're lying next to me,  
I wanna ride it out."

* * *

This was real.

While it had seemed surreal before it began, the endless night in sexual paradise proved that it was, in fact, reality.

My dreams of Kol and me in bed, before I ever even knew his name, didn't compare to the real thing. Damon was, obviously, a skilled lover who had helped me get out of my fear of it all, but he had _nothing_ on Kol.

Maybe it was time to stop comparing the two. Damon was just a drunk fuck, his failed attempts to move on from my sister. Kol had a potential to be everything I ever wanted and so much more.

The bed beneath me was much more comfortable than the one I slept on at home. Mine was high quality, but some hotels had beds that seemed as if they were made from the puffiest of clouds.

When I finally decided to open my eyes, the sunlight filled the room, stinging my half asleep eyes. They wanted to close back, but we had finally called it a night around . . . well, I didn't actually know, but the last time I had looked at clock, it was almost four.

There was no telling what time it was now.

Kol's arms were draped over my still naked body, holding me against his own equally naked body. The air in the room was like evaporated ice, as it had gotten so hot the night before that my human self needed the air on in the middle of October.

Dried sweat clung to my skin, under the nape of my neck the worst. It made the thought of climbing out of bed even more horrifying, especially when I remembered how cold it actually was outside of the covers. Waking up as dirty as I was always made me just want to go back to bed, even if that didn't help matters.

There was also the fact that Kol was holding me, and waking up next to him was something I never really expected to be as incredible as it was. One night, Elena planned to sleep over at Matt's, and I covered for our parents, saying that she was staying at Bonnie's while I stayed home. That only happened when one of us was sick, or in this case, when Elena was actually staying at Matt's.

Elena told me the next morning that she regretted it completely. Waking up next to him was uncomfortable, she said, and it was awkward.

I didn't feel any of those things when I opened my eyes and found Kol asleep beside me still. What I felt was something entirely different, a kind of contentment that I wasn't expecting.

There was a life waiting for me at home, however. After Stefan had gone off the deep end, Klaus was far more paranoid than before, checking up on Elena and me often to make sure Stefan hadn't killed us yet. He mentioned that he didn't think he would _kill_ us, only make us vampires, but he had to keep a check, to make sure our hearts were still beating.

I had to admit. I was glad he decided to steal the coffins. Would Kol and I have ever crossed paths had he not?

Getting out of Kol's arms without waking him up took a lot of careful maneuvering, only made possible with the extensive yoga I did to keep my werewolf curse at bay. It had its advantages, especially the night before. My body was able to bend in ways a lot of people didn't have the advantage of, and Kol loved every moment of it.

How was I ever going to get enough of that? A kiss alone had been addictive, but the night of passion that followed was so much more than that. All I wanted to do was wake him up and start again, but I had to get home.

If we didn't want Klaus finding him here, I didn't need to stay here for long. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that he had some sort of tracking device put on me.

The second my feet hit the carpeted floor beneath me, my body was yanked back onto the bed, and Kol's eyes, now wide open and fully alert, were staring down at me, a rather wicked grin pulling onto his lips.

He leaned towards me ever so slightly, intoxicating me with the smell of old whiskey on his breath. It wasn't the worst morning breath he could've had, as the smell of rotten vagina could've lingered there.

"Where do you think you're going?" he breathed, more whiskey overpowering my senses.

My eyebrows rose. "Well, one of us is still human, you know."

"I can change that," he purred, around the same time that his arms snaked around my waist, pulling my body against his again. His lips found the skin between my neck and shoulder, his tongue tracing a delicate trail across the skin that for most people having this kind of contact with Kol ended with someone dead.

He mentioned more than once throughout the night how amazing it was that he could kiss me there, the perfect place to sink his teeth in and get a taste, without even thinking about blood. At one point, he bit me, in the completely human way that didn't involve fangs and blood, and even that didn't get a rise out of the darker side of him.

Something about being with me helped him forget who he was, in a way he hadn't experienced since turning, and I was more than happy to be his escape from that side of him, the side that he didn't seem so fond of anymore.

I snorted. "Yeah, right. I'm pretty sure your brother would kill you."

"How can he do that?" he asked, and he tilted his head up away from my skin so I could make eye contact with him, to see the excitement in his eyes. "He has no power over me anymore."

This reminded me of a moment during the night, when Kol was dominating me—as he had for the majority of the night—I was begging him to keep going, to never stop, and with the wildest grin, he leaned down and whispered, _"You could have this forever, love."_

That was all I wanted, to even have the possibility of forever with Kol, but right now, the only way I could see was to sire myself to Klaus, to bond to him in a way that anyone Kol cared about _couldn't_ be bonded to him.

There had to be to get away from the sire bond, but I couldn't figure it out alone.

My eyes closed, to shut out the world around me in an attempt to center my thoughts, and that, paired with a deep breath in, I was able to make myself say what needed to be said, if there was any chance of a future.

"Kol . . . there's something you need to know, something your brother . . . can never find out."

His eyebrows rose. "More secrets from my brother? I would love to know, darling. What is it?"

"I can't become a vampire because I'm a werewolf."

Whereas he had been laying on my chest still, close to my neck to start kissing me again, hearing me say that snapped him out of it. He shot up so fast that I didn't see him moving, only saw him suddenly sitting up on the bed beside me, looking at me with furrowed eyebrows.

"W-What?"

"That's why I kept telling you that I can't become a vampire," I whispered. "Because I can't, not without Klaus' blood. Since I'm his doppelgänger, he won't give it to me."

He shook his head. "He only needs one, right? He can-he can do with just one."

"He thinks that Elena will be turned before graduation, that her becoming a vampire is inevitable," I disagreed. "He thinks I'm the only one with a shot of making it out of this town alive."

"No." He was still shaking his head, those rounded eyebrows now perfectly woven together as the corners of his eyes tightened, any semblance of a smile disappearing from his face. "I refuse to let this happen, even if it means helping your friends find a way to put him down long enough to get his blood for you."

"You're also forgetting that even if he _does_ give me his blood, I'll be sired to him," I reminded him. "That's why I told you not to fall in love with me because I'm either gonna die or be under the control of your brother, and I don't want either of those things to happen."

"You don't . . . you're not as warm as most werewolves who have triggered their curse," he said. "How did I not notice this?"

"It's a long story to explain how I know that I'm a werewolf, but I haven't triggered my curse yet," I said. "We've been doing whatever we can to make sure I _don't_. That sounds . . . horrible, like nothing I'd ever want to experience."

A smile began tugging on the corners of his lips now. "That's hope, darling. Before we turn you for certain, I will make sure, but because you haven't triggered your curse, you are, essentially, human. Until you kill someone, your curse won't trigger. That was how we found out Nik was only our half-brother. His first kill triggered his curse, after he was a vampire."

"I won't be an Original, though," I said. "Would it even work that way?"

"I don't see why it wouldn't." The smile widened further, those eyes warming back up. "Of course, we'll explore every option, but I think turning you, as long as you don't trigger your curse, will make you able to be turned by anyone."

I let out a breath, but I could feel my own mouth curling into a smile. "See, I always wanted to be a vampire. Damon always said he wouldn't turn me, as my sister would hate him even if I insisted that it was what I wanted. She would hate him for giving me that option, as she doesn't think being a vampire is right. She hasn't said that out-loud, but it's pretty obvious that she feels that way."

"No offense, but your sister is a bit dull," he said, and though his eyebrows rose, his nose scrunched in the most adorable way. "I mean that as kindly as I can say it."

I laughed now and grabbed onto his face, pulling it to mine so my lips could grab onto his. For a moment, I forgot the urgency, the need to get myself out of this bed. All I could think about was how amazing it was that after a night filled with passion, kisses, and lots of fucking, this kiss felt as good as the first, if not better. It was more comfortable.

When I pulled away, Kol's eyelids fluttered open, his smile twisting into something much more beautiful. "Don't write off the idea yet."

The way his eyes were looking at me, like I was some sort of precious gem, brought fire to my cheeks that was very familiar around Kol. No one looked at _me_ this way, so this was a new experience. Yet he made it familiar.

"Why do you care?" I taunted, though my heart was fluttering far too much for me to truly be sassy about it. "Just because we had one good night—"

"I don't remember _good_ being involved last night," he cut me off, and his teeth grit together when his lips turned into a devious grin again, his body falling on top of mine to pin me back onto the bed. "I remember blowing your mind over and over again."

"We mortals can't compare, I know."

Like I hoped, it made him laugh a lot more, that full laugh that carried through the room and made my body react in a similar way to his smile, but intensified. He could make me feel things with little simple gestures that no one else could, and that was the beginning of love, in my mind.

What did I know about love, though?

I was able to push him off of me while he was laughing and slid back out of the bed, finding my underwear in the floor next to my feet. Almost as soon as I slid back into them, his fingers slipped inside the back lining, pulling my body back against him.

Still completely naked, with an erection that wasn't trying to hide itself, pressing me against him was beyond hot, especially when his teeth sank into the skin of my shoulder.

"I don't want you to go just yet."

"I have to," I breathed, and one of my hands came up to latch onto the wild hair he had. Mine probably didn't look any better. We were both very handsy. "Elena mentioned something about you coming over for dinner, though. You should do that. Tonight."

"That could be fun," he murmured, a soft sigh tickling my skin after the words got out. "I suppose it would be best to let you get dressed and get you home. I imagine your sister is nervous, amidst all the Niklaus chaos."

That thought hadn't even occurred to me, though I _had_ thought to text her and tell her I was staying over at Kol's. After sending that text to her, I hadn't even looked at my phone to see what she might've said back—he wasn't gonna get to see her response for sure—so I hadn't thought about my sister since then, not really. I knew I needed to get back before Klaus stopped by, but that was all I had worried about.

With Kol no longer holding me back, I was able to get ready. I didn't bother trying to clean myself up much, just peed and threw the wild mess that was my hair into a bun. Kol got the luxury of brushing his teeth, whereas I still had to feel like hot garbage on the outside.

My insides were a bit stiff as well, but if that was all I had to endure for a night like the one I had, I'd take it.

Kol noticed me walking a bit off, and though his eyes were absolutely shining with pride, a smirk curling onto those lips I loved feeling against mine, but he did something I didn't even think to ask for: he bit his wrist and held it out towards me.

"It will make you feel better."

A night like that without consequence? I was _definitely_ gonna take that.

The car ride back home was more entertaining than the rides had been the night before. Even as the tension eased throughout the night, there was still the "first date" aura hanging in the room. I imagined it would've been worse with anyone else, but it wasn't like that anymore.

Caroline always said that having sex with someone is the best way to get fully comfortable with them, as they know you and you know them. Of course, getting naked didn't fully expose you to someone, but in a way, it _did_. Even if your heart and soul was still buried, hidden behind walls that you may or may not have put up consciously, you still had secrets that the other person didn't know.

She was right, though. Kol had seen me naked, and he liked it—a lot. He liked it enough that he had the longest night of his eternity.

In a thousand years, he had never stayed up all night having sex with someone. With everyone else, he got bored of it quickly, but I was already that different.

This wasn't what I expected when I pulled the dagger out of him, but how could I have expected this?

As Kol pulled his car to the end of my driveway, his eyes were melted again, the kind of liquid fire that rekindled the flame that had been burning so brightly in me not even twenty-four hours prior. My Spotify playlist was still playing in the background, as he mentioned wanting to hear more modern music while also hearing what kinds of things I liked listening to, but I couldn't even recognize the song playing when my gaze caught his.

His hand grabbed the back of my head and pulled me towards him, using the same kind of roughness he had during a good portion of the night. Towards the end, as our energy began getting the better of both of us, the rough, wild sex turned into something more sensual and intimate.

Both had their perks, but there was something about catching his eyes with mine, having the maniacal Original vampire who didn't usually leave survivors in his wake hold me so delicately.

When his lips met mine, with a fervor that didn't give me a good sense of goodbye, I felt good, better than I had in all of my life.

For once in my life, I was the girl that someone like _Kol_ wanted, the man who had seen so many different kinds of beauty in his life that it was probably astounding. Something about me drew him into something he called dangerous territory, but he didn't care. He wanted to go there with me.

What was it about me?

He ripped himself away from me and closed his eyes, taking a long breath before allowing them to open again. They found me almost immediately, and the light shining in them put the sun to shame.

"Darcy Gilbert, you are a first in history, I do believe. I'll be back later."

"Five," I said, and the massive smile that pulled onto my face, which actually hurt the corners of my mouth, seemed to be infectious, as he smiled at the sight of it. "Don't be late. That would be rude."

"I've managed to make you believe I'm a proper gentleman this long," he said. "Trust me, darling, I won't screw it up just yet."

I rolled my eyes. "I know you're an asshole and all, but you're an asshole who has secretly had this warm and fuzzy teddy bear hiding deep inside, just waiting for someone to snuggle it."

His eyebrows rose. "Is that so?"

"Mmhmm." I opened the butterfly door and swooped down to grab my heels and clutch from the floor. "I'll see you later."

"Of course."

If I didn't take that opportunity to run back inside, I would've stayed there all day, but I probably smelled horrible, at least somewhat as horrible as I felt. I didn't feel sick or hurt, but I felt disgusting. I was in desperate need for a shower, and a long nap.

The squeals were instant, barely allowing me to fully step inside before they began. They weren't from a single source either; Bonnie, Caroline, and Elena all sat in the living room, awaiting my arrival anxiously.

It was barely past noon, which helped me understand why I was so damn tired. I wasn't sure if they had stayed the night, expecting me to come home last night, or if they had come over whenever they both got up, awaiting my walk of shame arrival.

There was absolutely no shame about it.

"Someone had a good night last night!" Caroline exclaimed. "You look like hell!"

I let out a breath of a laugh and shook my head. "I don't feel like it. Oh, Elena, he's coming over tonight for dinner."

"Then so are we," Bonnie said, and a massive grin grew on her lips as my eyebrows rose. "Oh come on, Darcy. You don't just jump into bed with a guy who gives you a bit of attention. We wanna know what's so special about this one."

"Did you ever think that maybe I was drunk?" I asked.

Elena clicked her tongue and let her grin turn wry. "Yeah, I don't believe that. You would've texted me that you were drunk. You always do."

"I wasn't drunk," I agreed. "He _did_ convince the waitress that we were both twenty-one, though. Apparently money and good looks get you far."

Caroline laughed. "Of course it does! So come on! We need dirty details, _now_. Actually, give us details, but spare us the 'Darcy' details?"

"You know what? Bite me."

She gasped. "Did he bite you? Does he like it rough? I picture him as the dominate type."

My eyebrows rose. "You're good."

"Hot damn!" she exclaimed, and her eyes grew as wide as her massive smile.

"I'm really dirty and tired," I said, and I did my best to portray my discomfort with nothing but the sound of my voice. "It was a long night. I'm gonna shower and nap and then figure out what the hell I'm gonna make tonight for dinner. Mock me tonight . . . after he goes home."

There was so much more I could've stayed there and discussed, but I was definitely ready for a shower. I didn't know if I'd get a nap in, but it was a nice thought anyways.

As I made it back to my room, it occurred to me that I hadn't plugged my phone up in a while, so I pulled it out of the clutch and walked over to my bedside table, where my charger was lying in wait for a phone to be plugged into it.

The name that flashed across my screen wasn't a name I expected to hear from, at least not so soon. There were quite a few messages, but it was the most recent one I received and who I received it from.

It was a message from Kol, sent about the same time I got my phone plugged up.

 ** _Thank you for the best night of my existence, and while the sex was amazing, I don't just mean the sex. I've never felt that alive before, and you have no idea how much that means to me._**

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you guys so much for reading this story and letting me know what you think! :) I'm glad you are all enjoying it so much.**

 **The lyrics at the beginning of this chapter are from the song _Ride It Out_ by MAKEOUT. Seriously, those guys are awesome. Another new band I've recently discovered that I listen to their songs a lot.**

 **Read, review, and enjoy! :)**


	12. 11: Dinner

"I want to breathe you in like a vapor.

I want to be the one you remember.

I want to feel your love like the weather,

All over me, all over me."

* * *

"Darcy Gilbert, I believe you've shrunk since I last saw you."

As I stood here, dressed in a different kind of dress—the kind one wears when dressing for a casual dinner with her new boyfriend, who was secretly an Original vampire, and her best friends, sister, brother, and new guardian—one that Jeremy joked was my Minnie Mouse dress.

Just because it was red with white polka dots didn't make it a Minnie Mouse dress.

Unlike usual when I was around Kol or, really, anyone in public, the heels on my shoes were flat. On occasion, I'd dress for super comfort at school and wear the same kind of Ugg boots I wore now, though they weren't always black, but most times, it was wedges and heels for me.

It wasn't that I was super short; Elena and I were average height for a woman, but heels made me feel good, paired with the dresses I usually wore.

The corners of my eyes tightened, my lips curling into a hint of a smirk. "No I haven't. Remember? I came back barefoot."

His smirk grew much more devious, his bottom lip disappearing between his teeth. "How could I forget?" The smirk fell off his face as he held up a bottle of expensive bourbon, not just some cheap gas station liquor store stuff. "I come bearing gifts."

"Did you bat your eyelashes at the person at the liquor store, too?"

A rather loud and charming laugh pulled out an adorably joyous smile, expressing something I don't think he was used to actually feeling. "Oh come on. You're not still on that, are you?"

"A bit. She could lose her job because of you."

A hand reached over from behind me, taking the bottle from his hands before my mind could even register who it was. "Use your eyelashes and money all you want. We will definitely take advantage of that."

My eyebrows rose as I looked back towards Caroline, briefly, before moving my gaze back to the super attractive vampire at my front door. "My friends decided to come and wait for me to get home, and then wait here for you to come back."

"That sounds . . . a bit horrifying."

"Mmm, only if you have something to hide," Caroline taunted, in an almost sing-song voice. "Darcy, you're being rude! Come on in, Kol. Have a drink with us."

His smirk started to come back, but it definitely didn't have the slyness it had just a few moments ago, when I mentioned that I was barefoot last he saw me. "I can never turn down a good drink."

He stepped inside, grabbing onto my hand as he did. It was instant, like an afterthought even, but it made my heart soar. When I closed the door and looked back at him, finding his gaze already looking back towards me with all hint of anything but something pure in his eyes gone, it felt as if the nerves just beneath my skin were touched with a live wire.

"So you like to party then," Caroline so inaccurately judged, pulling the two of us back into the moment around us.

His eyebrows rose. "What? I mean, everyone loves a good party now and then, but I'm not a huge go out and party type of guy. I'm always up for some good fun, though."

"You'll have to excuse Caroline's rude prying," Bonnie spoke up, rolling her eyes as she stepped closer to the entrance of the home, where Kol and me both still stood. "This is Darcy's first real relationship of any kind, and I don't mean to imply anything. I just—"

"No, Bonnie, it's fine," Kol cut her off, before her apologetic rant could go on any further. "I do have intentions of seeing Darcy again. That's why I'm here."

"Good." Bonnie's voice was as soft as her smile suddenly was, and her eyes were glowing. "She likes you, so take care of her."

"Yeah, you better," Caroline added on, rather forcefully. "As far as we know, she's never even had sex—"

"Why the hell would I even tell you when I knew _this_ was how you'd react?" I asked, my eyes growing wide.

"Fair point."

Elena let out a sigh and shook her head. "This was probably a bad idea, especially so soon . . . but they're insistent, and we all want the best for Darcy."

From the kitchen, the sound of a timer started beeping, cutting off anything Kol might have been going to say in response to my sister. The food was almost ready, with just a bit of cheese melting over an eye, so with a sigh, I stepped carefully into the kitchen, to flip the oven off and turn on the eye, to melt the cheese that was already sitting in the appropriate double boiler.

Four different sets of footsteps followed me into the kitchen, with Elena and Bonnie taking a seat at the two island bar stools. Caroline stood next to Bonnie, her arms folded over her chest while she eyed Kol suspiciously, and the handsome man himself stood closest to me, leaned against the counter at the sink.

I ignored them all temporarily while I added a bit of milk into the cheese, but once it was simmering on the eye, it freed me up. The smell of the grilled chicken, dominated with black pepper and oregano, made my stomach churn. It hadn't actually occurred to me until I had started cooking, but I hadn't actually eaten anything since dinner the night before. Kol offered to get me some lunch, but I declined, insisting that I was ready to get clean and into a change of clothes.

Seeing Caroline's already tight eyes narrow even further in the direction of Kol, who was doing nothing but watching me, surprised me more than it should have.

"Alright, I know she's super attractive and all, but please stop undressing our friend while we're standing right here," she demanded, when she realized that Kol hadn't even noticed her.

He noticed her now, and he tore his gaze away from me so he could look at her, both eyebrows raised. "Undressing her? You confuse undressing and admiring from afar."

Just when I had a good grip on reality, he had to go and say something like that, something that seemed as if it came out of a fairytale. Everything about him was perfect, aside from, you know, being a ruthless vampire who had killed more people than I had probably ever even me.

That wasn't the Kol I was meeting, though. The Kol that was here, the one we were all getting to know more, wasn't a merciless killer. Maybe that was presumptuous, but I didn't understand how someone would was capable of being so endearing could also be so callous.

Caroline began grumbling something under her breath, something I don't think she intended for anyone to actually hear, but I wondered if Kol did, if he was even paying attention to her. He mentioned that he liked listening to the way my heart raced, especially because of something he did or said, so that was probably what he was focused on.

It was easier to focus my thoughts when I turned back to the finishing touches of the food I was making, while the Bonnie, Elena, and Caroline all took care of the conversation, mostly just small talk about his life and personal history. They didn't ask super deep questions, but it was questions you might expect the friends and family to ask a new boyfriend.

For the moment, things were normal.

The cheese melted quickly, and once it was ready, it was time to put it all together. That part was easy enough, just mixing the diced grilled chicken with the Mexican rice and drowning it all in just enough cheese, without putting too much. Some people liked a lot of cheese and others didn't, so I wanted to find the perfect medium.

Strong arms wrapped around my waist as soft lips found my ear, the skin tickling the outside of my earlobe. "You're far too cute. It isn't fair to all other women."

The automatic smile was probably as vibrant as I felt inside, but right now, I had to play it off and move the food that was ready over to the table.

Any good cook knows that every dish should be tasted, to make sure it's right, so instead of testing it myself, I got a bit on the end of a spoon and made Kol taste it.

"Shut up and try this."

His teeth scraped along the bottom of his lip again, just to get a hot and bothered rise out of me—which he did, of course—before his lips opened, giving me enough room to slide the spoon into his mouth.

I shouldn't have been jealous of a spoon, but it was hard to forget how good it felt to have those lips wrapped around me, licking up the mess we had made the night before.

"And you can cook," he murmured, and a smirk grew while his eyebrows wiggled, just slightly enough for me to notice. "I still can't fathom how you never caught someone's attention before."

This man was far too attractive for my own good, but a lot of his pull on me probably had more to do with the night we had had prior than his actual looks. More accurately, it was the two things combined.

How was I supposed to just forget the best night of my life, though?

Dinner went by almost too smoothly, with the conversation remaining light hearted and laughter all the way through. No one was uncomfortable for even a second. The best part was, none of it was a lie. All the conversations were truths about Kol, truths about life in Mystic Falls and about our lives.

It was a lot easier to enjoy it fully when I wasn't reminded that all of this was just a blatant lie to everyone I cared about.

When everyone was finished, Elena was quick to stand up and take everyone's plates. She wasn't a cook. The few times she had tried hadn't really ended well, so she refrained from cooking and instead always cleaned up afterwards.

This time was only different because Kol stood up and helped her carry the stuff into the kitchen. There was only room for one person at the sink, but he was a proper gentleman and helped her get it all in there.

Yeah, I didn't believe his whole "not a gentleman" thing at all. He kept trying to insist that he wasn't a gentleman, but what did he really know of this side of himself?

"This has been fun and all, but Kol, you seriously make me nervous," Caroline announced as she stood from the table, walking into the kitchen with her arms folded and her eyebrows woven together. "You're _too_ perfect. If you knew the kind of hell we've all been through, you'd understand why that's hard for us to be okay with."

His eyebrows furrowed. "That's actually a very logical thing to worry about. I could see why you would be worried. I admit. All of this makes me nervous myself, but if you get nothing else out of this dinner tonight, please understand that I would never do anything to hurt Darcy. The more I'm around her, the more I realize that there are a rare few good people left in this world, and she's one of them. Only a monster would ruin that."

No one had anything to say to that, but everyone wore different expressions of contentment at what he said.

Their smiles had nothing on mine, though, even if I tried to hide it.

Caroline and Bonnie were leaving around the same time Kol was, and though I walked outside with them all, I only lingered around Kol's car, ignoring the smirks and playful glares sent my way as they both left and went on home.

"I'm sorry if things were too intense in there," he murmured, almost the second their cars were out of sight. "I don't mean to come on too strong. My family and I, we just feel everything so much more intensely. It's like when most people first become vampires, that initial feeling of everything inside of you being heightened, it never goes away for us. We always feel things so much stronger, and as an Original vampire, I wanted to make sure your friends had no reason not to trust—"

My lips grabbed ahold of his when it became clear that he was on a long, nervous rant about it all. It was easy to see his side of it; after coming out of the coffin, more than a century later, he comes face to face with someone who means more to him than anyone ever had, someone who wants to get to know the real Kol. If things felt more intense for him than they did me, he was probably completely aware of the pull that could only be explained by soulmates.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," I whispered as I pulled away, just far enough that I was able to make words. Our lips still touched ever so slightly. "Thank you for coming tonight. It was fun."

"It was." He put both hands along my cheeks, his long, slender fingers touching the edge of my ear lobe, and guided my face closer to his, pressing his lips against mine for just a single moment. "Sorry. I don't think I'll ever get used to that feeling."

"Stop apologizing for doing nothing wrong."

A warm breath, laced with bourbon with a hint of spice leftover from the yummy food we had all just eaten, caressed my skin, taking me back to the night prior in a second. It had been wine and Italian food before, but this kind of intimate embrace was sure to get my mind on other things, at least until I got used to this feeling.

Could I ever really get used to it, though?

"I'm not used to this 'remorse' thing," he admitted, one side of his lips pulling up into a wry smile. "I'm not very good at it yet."

"We have plenty of time to practice, but there are other things I wanna practice right now." My hands knotted into his hair, giving me just the leverage I needed to yank his face back to mine.

It was this kind of kissing that people got lost in, wrote love songs about. It was the kinda kiss people dreamed of experiencing but never really got the chance to, the kind that broke the sky and opened up the universe.

If every bad thing that had ever happened in my life led me to this moment, I would experience them all over again if it meant this never had to end.

He tore himself away from my lip suddenly, pressing his forehead against mine while his eyes closed, his own breaths becoming a struggle. He made me feel that way all the time, so it was nice to see it turned around in my favor.

"I'll practice that all night again," he breathed.

My eyebrows rose. "We need sleep."

"Sleep is for those who haven't found their first taste of anything real." His lips found mine one last time, a sort of bittersweet goodbye that neither of us really wanted to say. "Goodnight, darling."

"I'll see you tomorrow," I said, and before I could forget to convince myself that I needed to go back inside, alone, I took the first step away from his car, back towards the large wrap around porch.

"Tomorrow."

The cold fall air tingled against my burning cheeks as I stepped up onto the porch, and in a moment of loss of conviction, I glanced over my shoulder, back towards the stunning man standing next to a car that more than suited him.

If trivial things such as cars could suit someone of his caliber that is; he was probably the most charming person I had ever met, with a handsome demeanor no matter what mood he was in. Some people had good and ugly sides, sides that made you forget that they were attractive, but I hadn't seen that in Kol, not yet.

The more I was around him, the more I was sure to meet the Original brother who was a homicidal maniac, but for the first time since I heard about the brother that was even more ruthless than Klaus, I wasn't afraid to meet him.

I didn't imagine even that side of Kol would do anything to hurt me.

That was probably completely stupid to think and say, but it was hard to feel any other way. Logically, I should've been afraid of him. If I went by logic and reason, none of this would've happened to begin with.

A life without love is meaningless.

Elena was waiting for me as I finally managed to step back inside, an almost permanent smile hanging on my lips when I closed the door behind me, leaning against it for support as my mind raced with all the memories of the night before and tonight.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

That was the kind of question that could kill any mood, laced with a tone of doubt and hesitance. What had been a night of dreams for me, two nights of dreams really, hadn't been the same for my sister; something was wrong.

My eyebrows furrowed, my smile fading. "What do you mean?"

"Our lives aren't exactly safe," she reminded me. "He just got to town, and you're already in a relationship with him."

Maybe I should've expected something like this, but stupidly, I had thought Elena would just let me have this happiness for as long as I could manage it. It wasn't that she didn't want me to be happy, but she didn't want me to get hurt, didn't want to see my happiness ripped away in a permanent way again.

"I feel a connection to him, Elena, something I can't really explain."

"Just be careful," she murmured as she fought the urge to smile, the corners of her lips twitching up with restraint. "It's the people around us that always get hurt the most. Kol seems nice and all, but his feelings for you are . . . intense. Just . . . be careful and take things slow, alright?"

"I will."

Though I made the promise, I didn't actually believe it was possible. Whatever we were getting ourselves into couldn't be handled with caution, couldn't be taken slow.

We could wake up tomorrow and have it all ripped away, and I didn't want to look back and think about all the things that could've been had I just not cared so much about taking things slow.

I wanted this to be forever or a wonderful memory to carry with me, and for it to be either of those things, I couldn't let myself focus on the dangers and heartbreak that could follow.

All I could focus on was the possibilities.

* * *

 **A/N: The lyrics are from the song _Vapor_ by 5 Seconds of Summer. :)**

 **I'm glad you guys are continuing to enjoy this story! Like I said before, I'm trying to stick to the lore of the Vampire Diaries world, but some things may be a bit different, especially later on. I've done my research, however, and I have discovered that no one actually knows what will happen if someone with the werewolf curse who hasn't triggered it becomes a vampire, so I get to be a bit creative with that. :) I hope you guys like where this story will continue to go, however! Thank you so much for your comments. I think this has been my most successful story I've ever published. I have a couple other different accounts under different emails that I can't access anymore, and none of the stories I've posted have been this successful, especially so quickly. You guys are awesome, but I'm glad you're enjoying this story. :)**

 **Enjoy! Let me know what you think.**


	13. 12: Disappearing Act

"I want to feel your wreckage, it's a firestorm  
I'm falling like a loaded weapon in your arms  
Paranoid it might be reckless, no matter what I say  
It's only going to steal your breath and slip away

I don't want to dive in first  
You don't want to hear these words  
It's only going to make it worse  
You don't want to live that curse  
You're telling me to keep my hope  
Cause you've got a heart of gold . . .

. . . You wear your heart so fearless, it's like it doesn't beat  
You push away my demons when they torture me  
Don't think that I can fight this pressure pulling me underneath  
It's like I've got the whole world tied around my feet."

* * *

The next few weeks were paradise. It was as if the supernatural world around us didn't even exist. I felt _normal_ —going to the movies with my boyfriend, laying around on the couch with my siblings and boyfriend while binge watching shows on Netflix . . . sometimes, it was easy to forget that he was a vampire.

Jeremy and Bonnie were starting over. According to Bonnie, they weren't ignoring what had happened, but starting fresh, with the memories of the past put to rest. It had been a long time since I had seen him this happy, and the supernatural world around us being put on hold helped even more.

No one knew how to open the locked coffin, and though it was bothering Bonnie, she was happy, too. Stefan was still hiding out from Klaus, who had actually paid a visit to the empty house where over a hundred witches had been slaughtered, and things between Damon and Elena were getting intense.

She confided in me that she almost kissed him, so of course, when I told her to go for it, it didn't make things any easier for her to deal with. She insisted that it was wrong, but when I asked her why she was letting Stefan, who only cared about revenge at this point, dictate her life, when Damon had been there with her through it all, she had nothing to say.

All I could do was hope for the best. Really, I liked Stefan. He was good for Elena when she needed him, but his love was safe. There was no adventure, no learning and growing. He would always let her make her own choices, but sometimes, Elena didn't know best.

I wanted someone who challenged me, who wasn't afraid to tell me that I was wrong. If all I got was compliancy, where was the growth in that?

That was exactly what I had, too—the man currently underneath me with his fingers so tight around my hip that I was certain it would bruise.

My body clung to him, tightly enough that I could feel each twitch, and my head fell back, the lubricated friction bringing us both closer to the edge.

The only way to keep myself up at this point was to hold onto his shoulder with my one free hand, the other holding one of his hands above his head with our fingers perfectly woven together. My head was falling limp as the weariness of this current relation was quickly catching up to me, the strands of the braid my hair had once been in hanging down as well.

How had we gotten here? This was not what he had come over for.

Oh yeah; yoga. There wasn't as much time to do yoga now that my free time was usually spent with Kol, but it was still necessary to try and keep the curse at bay. If Klaus was around me any period of time without keeping the anger inside, he was sure to figure it out.

He had gotten there faster than I thought he would, and I told him to let me finish what I was doing. Of course he didn't mind, and when I was stretching out in the final position, which just so happened to put my ass straight up in the air . . . one of his hands touched just underneath my ass, and I found myself backing up into his pelvis.

And now we were here, completely naked and in the middle of a half hour long romp. The middle was probably not the right word. It was definitely coming to an end, as the inside of my thighs was almost completely numb. He had dominated for the first big part of it, but I wanted to try to take over, to see how much yoga actually did for me.

It worked wonders, but that didn't mean I could just fuck all day long.

Despite the weariness, my gaze didn't move away from his, which had been locked on my eyes for a good bit now. Staring right into one another's eyes the entire time was impossible, at least without just being down right uncomfortable, but locking gazes close to the end, allowing one another to see us at our most vulnerable, was the most intimate thing I could imagine.

His fingers were like magic as they slid underneath my body, touching just the right place on my sex to push me off the cliff in the best of ways. He would never push if there wasn't water at the bottom, or a parachute on my back, but he loved to push me over, sometimes more than once.

As I freefell off the edge, a mixture of Kol's name and curses spewed out of my lips, igniting a vulnerable fire inside of him.

Maybe it was a thousand years of practice, or maybe it was the Original vampirism, but Kol had the stamina of a professional boxer. He could go and hold out for as long as he needed to, to make sure that I got the most out of every experience.

This time, after pushing me over the edge, he jumped almost right after me, those soft lips parting as his nails dug into the skin of my leg. Had he been a normal human, it would've just stung, but he was an Original vampire. His nails ripped through the flesh with ease, brining blood that didn't just pool to the top. It was running down my leg, gathering at the crease of my knee.

He hadn't even realized yet, as he was just now reaching the end of the journey, but his grip softened, those eyes fluttering closed while an equally euphoric smile presented itself.

"You never get dull, Darcy Gilbert."

With that thought in mind, my fingers moved down to the crease of my knee, wiping a lot of the pooled blood onto my finger. It wasn't a lot, but my finger looked as if I had dunked it into a cup of blood.

His eyes opened just in time to see me touch his lips with my bloodied finger, and the animalistic fervor that began shining in them was hot enough to knock all semblance of air from my body.

Do you know how hard it is to be sexy when you can't breathe? I found out in that moment.

His lips wrapped around my finger, the warmth of his tongue swirling around my finger. I expected the monster to start showing in his eyes, but Kol remained, savoring the taste of me that he was tasting for the second time.

It was hard to forget that he had drank my blood and kept me alive once already, which he declared to be an anomaly in his life. This was a second time, without even the hint of the darkness that might mean death.

"How do I taste?"

A growl began building in his throat, and he was sitting up with his lips against mine, moving with a passion that had become familiar but still just as delightful as the first time.

There was no end in sight to the pleasure. We hadn't exactly fucked non-stop, but we took advantage of any chance we got—just like this moment, when Alaric was staying late at school to grade some papers, when Jeremy was working at the Grill, and Elena was at the Salvatore's, talking to Damon about something Klaus related.

"You taste like heaven and obsession, in a dangerously powerful way."

The pale blue sheets beneath us were in danger, so I had to take the chance I had to get up off the bed, to attempt to clean up the blood before it made a mess all over my room.

He had his own idea to clean it up, grabbing onto my hips before I could make it into the bathroom. All I did was glance back at him before I felt it, the wet warmth of his tongue touching the place on my calf that the blood had gotten down to, sliding sensually up my leg, removing any trace of blood that had been there. All that remained now was the blood currently falling out of the still open wound, but it had slowed down quite a bit, even if the wound was pretty deep.

There was more than just a wet trail where his tongue had touched. What was wet and growing cold on the outside was a burning fire underneath, trailing past where his tongue was currently stopped—the open wound—and towards my dripping center, dripping with both previous encounters and possibilities of a new one.

His tongue suddenly left my skin, his body disappearing from in front of me. My eyes searched the room, and I finally found him, dressed up to his jeans and grabbing his shirt out of the floor at the foot of the bed.

From the way his eyes locked in mine while he attempted to smolder the flame, I realized without anything having to be said that someone was downstairs. If it was just Elena, he wouldn't have reacted that way, maybe told me to get dressed. If he was being silent, that meant it was someone we didn't want to know about him at all.

Klaus couldn't get inside, so was Stefan here?

After pulling his shirt on, Kol bit down on his wrist and put it against my mouth. Taking just what I needed, I started scrambling into some pajama pants, thankful that most of the blood was gone at least. If it was, in fact, Stefan, he would probably be able to smell the blood and sex, but I didn't care, as long as he didn't _know_.

By the time I was dressed and opening my bedroom door, Kol was gone from my room entirely, most likely somewhere outside. It gave me the freedom to open my door wide and walk downstairs casually, as if I was going to get a drink or something.

I hadn't heard anyone knock, so there was no reason for me to know anyone was down there.

Sure enough, Stefan stood at the bottom of the steps looking uncomfortable, but there was anger in his eyes, the kind of anger I expected if he ever found out about the coffins being empty.

Uh oh.

"Sorry to just barge in, but I know Klaus is keeping a close eye on the two of you. Couldn't risk him seeing me on the porch while I waited for you to open the door."

I folded my arms over my chest and took a deep breath. "No, that's fine. What are you doing here? Isn't being here risk enough on its own?"

"Did you open the coffins?"

"Of course I did." My lying skills were still pretty bleak, as Kol and I spent more time being together than we did actually working on anything productive—we should really do something about that—but there was a way to twist the truth in my favor. "You know I'm far too curious for my own good. Does that matter, though?"

"Well, it matters because the three Originals are no longer in their coffins," he said, and his eyes tightened. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

My eyes widened. "What? They're not in there?"

He took a deep breath, and the anger started to fade from his eyes, enough that I felt relief. "No, they're not. I don't know where they are or how they got out. One of them was in there for a really long time, so maybe the daggers won't put them down forever. Maybe he was able to take it out after nine centuries. I don't know. It isn't supposed to be possible, but what do we really know about all of this stuff?"

"What do we do now?" I asked. "Klaus won't want empty coffins."

"We can either weigh them down enough that it feels like someone is in there or spell them shut," he admitted. "Spelling them shut seems like the best option, but it's suspicious."

"Actually, we could use that to our advantage, at least until they show their faces," I disagreed. "Think about it. If Klaus thinks he's winning by getting the coffins back, only for us to have power over them by having them spelled shut, we could hold this out a little bit longer."

"If it comes to it, we'll do that," he agreed. "I think you and Bonnie should both spell them shut, just to ensure he can't open them. There are plenty of Bennett witches still alive, but no one has any idea you're even a witch."

My eyebrows furrowed. "I don't know that kind of magic. Remember? No one lets me practice."

"I think it's time you started," he said. "We could use you as an element of surprise against Klaus when the time is right."

At one point in our lives, Stefan had been the most insistent that I never learn how to use my magic, especially once Klaus came to town. He insisted that knowing any magic was dangerous, and even if he somehow found out, not knowing how to use my magic could make me useless to them.

Now he was telling me to use it, which just further showed how far he had fallen—past the point of giving any shits about any of us.

As an avid fighter of that concept, the "ignorance is bliss" concept they had all insisted upon me for so long, of course I welcomed _this_ change.

"I think you're right."

What better way to be able to defend myself than with magic that no one knew I was capable of?

The front door opened behind Stefan, almost hitting him, but it wasn't because Elena knew he was there. He was just so close to the door that it barely missed him.

When Elena stepped through, her eyes dropped to the floor, while Stefan turned back away from her almost immediately. There was an emptiness in his eyes that I hadn't quite gotten used to, especially with Elena in the room.

"Keep that in mind," he said, before anyone had a chance to say anything. Elena, though sad, had a fire in her eyes that hinted at a fight, one I don't think either of them were comfortable fighting.

Stefan stepped past Elena, going out of his way to make sure he didn't accidentally brush shoulders with her, and the front door closed behind him, leaving Elena and I alone to deal with the awkwardness of that encounter.

Things had been weird for us all since Stefan had been freed from the compulsion. At least while he was compelled and without humanity, there was an explanation for how he was acting, but that explanation was gone, at least in our human eyes. He had done a lot of horrible things, things Klaus forced on him, and he was angry with Klaus. That part I got.

Treating everyone like garbage, not caring about anyone that he had once cared about for the sake of revenge? I couldn't wrap my head around that at all.

"Did he seem suspicious to you?" Elena finally asked, after the silence was becoming eerie. It hadn't taken as long as it felt like to get there, as it felt like minutes ticking by.

"What? No, not really."

She shook her head slightly, her straightened hair falling from behind her ears to cover the sides of her face. "I don't know. I don't trust him."

"I don't either, but what can we do about it?"

It was a horrible thought for all of us, Elena and Damon especially, but it was something we were coming to terms with. This was a side of Stefan that no one had ever seen before, not even Damon. No one knew who he was or how far he was willing to go, so all we could do was sit back and try to stay out of his way.

Except I had done the exact opposite of that when I took the dagger out of Kol's chest.

What was he gonna do to me, though? Kill me? All I had to do was tell Kol I was worried Stefan might kill me, and he'd either kill him or compel him to leave me alone. If he was going to be raging, it wouldn't be directed towards me, even if he knew the truth.

We had to make sure that _no one_ got caught in the crossfires of this war for revenge, though. This town had lost too many people already. Any more in the name of revenge wasn't right.

Klaus needed to get his coffins back. We needed to get that sealed coffin open so we could figure out what he had hidden inside, what we might use to destroy him.

That would be the end of all of this.

* * *

 **A/N: Last one for the day! I don't know if I'll be able to post any chapters tomorrow, with it being Thanksgiving and all. It isn't my son's first Thanksgiving, but we're trying to do a lot for it, as it's the first one he'll actually be moving around for and enjoying.**

 **Thank you guys so much for reading! I will try and post two chapters tomorrow, but we'll see how it goes. :)**

 **Also, for a bit of clarity, these chapters are no longer on the episode timeline. This story started after homecoming, and bits of things that happen in some of the episodes will continue to happen throughout the story, but in order to make it my own kinda thing, it's gone away from the episode timeline and become its own story.**

 **The lyrics are from the beautiful song _Periscope_ by Papa Roach.**

 **Read, review, and enjoy.**


	14. 13: Mentor

"I don't know what road we're on.

I don't know what we're heading towards,

But I know my heart is all yours."

* * *

"I don't know what Nik has hidden in that last coffin, but whatever it is, it has to be something that can kill him."

Kol wasn't just stating the obvious right now; we were sitting in my room, trying to discuss any way we might know to open up the coffin. If it was a spell that even Bonnie couldn't do, there wasn't a lot of hope for us.

Not without the knowledge of an Original vampire who just so happened to be fascinated with magic.

"But I may have an idea that won't require that coffin to be opened," he said, which pulled my gaze away from the grimoire Bonnie had brought over. She and I agreed to read through as many as we could, with the help of Damon, to see if there was something we could find that we hadn't already tried. "I found a way to make the daggers work on Nik, by using a different type of magic called kemiya. It combines the power of magic with science, and it would require teaching you and Bonnie how to use it, but we could make the dagger golden, making it possible to use it on Nik."

My eyebrows rose. "Seriously? Is that all it takes?"

"It won't be easy," he disagreed. "It's going to take quite a few things that are hard to come by. I had them back before he daggered me the most recent time, which is actually why he daggered me—he found out that I was going to make a dagger to use against him."

"That's pretty hypocritical."

He snorted. "You're telling me. To make it worse, Elijah helped him do it, and Rebekah was the one who told him that I was still trying to get the diamond I needed to do it with."

"Why would they do that?" I asked. "They suffered from Klaus' abuse just like you."

"Elijah and Rebekah were favorites of Nik," he said, the corners of his eyes tightening as he sat down next to me on the bed. "Finn was his least favorite, which is why he never removed the dagger from his body after getting them, but I was the one who stood against him the most. I wasn't going to just sit back and take his abuse, especially after being excluded from the family the way that I was."

I remembered back to something he had told me on the way to the movies the other night, when I asked if there was ever a time he and his siblings were close. He had mentioned that there was a time, before their mother died, but then they excluded him from their promise to stand together, always and forever. Ever since then, everything he had done had been to earn their favor and attention, to try and be a part of that, but he never was.

They were all horrible to him when all he wanted was to be a family.

"So what do you need?" I asked. "Maybe these grimoires will mention something about it. Some of them have mentioned encountering your brother, spells witches have made to protect themselves from him."

He nodded. "I read those. I have the daggers, and for fun, I could make them all golden and able to be used on Nik alone, but to make just one gold, we would need something like the perfect paragon diamond I was able to find in the 1900's. It's being protected now by a man who would kill himself before he gave it to me, as he's fiercely loyal to my brother and hates me just as much."

My eyebrows rose. "Seriously? How is anyone loyal to your brother?"

"Marcellus was always more family than I was," he admitted. "Nik found him when he was a young boy, and he sort of raised him. He cared more about this boy he found than his own brother, so I hated Marcellus. I did horrible things to him, things I never even realized were horrible."

"You know, you should be careful with the conscience," I informed him. "It might make you shut off your humanity if you think too much about it."

"For all the wrongs I've done, there's too much right going on for me to even think about flipping that switch," he disagreed. "I don't dwell on it. What's done is done. I can't change the past, only try to do better in the future."

This was a conversation I wanted to explore, so with my index finger tucked inside the pages, I closed the grimoire for a moment and focused on Kol completely. "You know, you never did tell me what it was about me that made you want to be better."

"You're pure, in a way that isn't smothering," he said. "You don't go around making everyone feel like monsters for the bad things they've done. Every day, you wake up and try to make the world better than it was when you went to sleep, even if it's just the world around you."

"One person can't change the world," I said. "Even with forever."

"Maybe not," he agreed. "But all I can think about any time I feed from someone is that I want to do right by you, which leaves me able to keep them alive."

A smile pulled onto my face, but my eyes drifted back down to the grimoire, which I opened back up. This conversation could've been explored more, but what more did I need to ask? Kol wanted to be better, if for no one else but me. One day, he might want to be better for himself, but the sheer fact that he wanted to be better was enough for me.

"You must be thirsty," he said, and he stood from the edge of my bed, flipping the grimoire closed and tossing it over to the bed next to me. "Do you need anything else?"

I shook my head. "No. A drink sounds amazing."

He was gone in a second, though I imagined he slowed down when he got to the steps. Jeremy wasn't here right now. After leaving Bonnie's, he mentioned something about hanging out with some friends, but Alaric and Elena were downstairs, getting things ready for the first "family meal" we had had in . . . honestly, I didn't think we had all sat down together as family since our parents died. There was probably once or twice, but we hadn't even celebrated Christmas and Thanksgiving as a family the year they died.

This year would be different. Our lives would finally start to carry on as normal, even in the face of all the death and loss we had all experienced thus far.

While Kol was gone, my eyes froze at the page I turned to, finding something unrelated in the words at the top.

It was hard to make a lot of it out, as the pages had been worn with age, but it mentioned something about a spell to stop a witch from taking magic from another. When Luka and his dad had come to town helping Elijah, he was able to take Bonnie's magic away from her, but this didn't seem like it was talking about that.

The word _siphoning_ was in there, and that was the only word I had ever been able to find to describe what I did when I took the magic away from another source.

This spell looked to be some sort of elaborate lock, something that kept the magic and its source safe from this kind of magic, but when I flipped through more pages, allowing my eyes to briefly skim over each page, none of the others mentioned anything about it.

When Kol got back in there, holding a glass of cherry juice, it was hard to remember what I had found; he knew what I wanted, without ever actually telling him out-loud.

"You look surprised. Did you find something?"

I gave him a small smile as I took the cup from his hands, taking a large sip before using the finger I had bookmarking that page to pull it back open.

He saw what I was looking at and furrowed his eyebrows. "Is this talking about your kind of magic?"

I nodded. "At least all that I know about my magic. It's the first thing I've found that seems anything like what I do. I siphon the magic from my blood and use it for whatever spells I want within the limits of the magic in my blood. Maybe that's what kind of magic it is."

"That makes sense," he agreed. "Though I've never come across it before. I don't imagine that it's a type of magic that nature likes. Anything that throws off the balance in any way is considered an abomination or 'dark' magic."

"I don't get it," I said. "I'm probably the weakest witch in history because the only source of power I have comes from my blood, which is bound by human limitations."

"We need to get you an amulet, maybe have my blood put in it," he suggested. "That way, you always have something on you that allows you to use magic _without_ taking it from yourself."

"That's not a bad idea."

"I can look through the grimoires that I have access to," he offered. "Most of them are farther away than I would like to travel, but I've stored a few throughout Mystic Falls over the centuries. I don't imagine any of them would mention what you are, but we can look at least."

I leaned back a bit, into his shoulder, and allowed my head to fall over onto his shoulder, in a simple kind of embrace that meant more than it should have. "Thank you. Look, I know you can't use magic anymore, but you know a lot about it, probably more than anyone here. Could you help me learn how to use it?"

"I don't know much about what you do," he said, and he took a deep breath. "If it really is as simple as siphoning magic before being able to do whatever spell you want to do, it shouldn't be hard to teach you. First, we have to find some sort of amulet for you to draw power from, a talisman maybe. I will look into that. I don't understand the ignorance is bliss mindset everyone has had. You absolutely should know how to protect yourself."

"But you will help me?" I asked, mostly for clarification.

"I will help you any way that I can," he agreed, his lips curling into a devious smile for a moment as I looked up at him. "It will be fun, being that close to magic again."

Being this close to him, with our faces so close to touching, it was all I could do to stay calm. All I could focus on was how soft his lips looked, how good they felt against mine, how amazing the smell of his cologne was after a full day of school.

All good things come to an end, however.

Something downstairs was going wrong, something that had Elena raising her voice at someone. Kol had been so focused on me, on our conversation, that he hadn't even realized someone was here, at least not enough that he felt obligated to say something.

"Who is it?" I asked.

His eyebrows furrowed. "Jeremy and Tyler."

"You should go," I said, and I began scrambling out of bed, my feet carrying me across the cold wood floors to my bedroom door as quickly as I could go without tripping over myself. "The less Tyler knows about you, the better."

We had been very careful to avoid him at school, and everyone agreed that Tyler didn't need to know that I had a boyfriend. There was no way to know how far being sired to Klaus went, so if Klaus asked him who he could use to get to me, if he knew I had a boyfriend . . . .

Klaus just didn't need to know about Kol at all.

With everyone downstairs, Kol had to step down quietly without using his vampire speed, but he was stepping like a vampire might. My human footsteps probably made up for the sound, since Tyler was the only one who would notice that Kol didn't make a sound.

The voices had gotten louder by the time we got downstairs, and sure enough, Tyler was sitting at the table looking irate while everyone else stood around him, their eyes widened.

Why was Tyler in the house? We had all agreed that no hybrids needed to be invited in, not while Klaus was trying to find Stefan and find ways to force us to tell him where the coffins were.

I think he knew that I knew, but he also knew that I couldn't be compelled to tell him, unlike Elena. If he could find a way to get to me specifically, I'm sure he was going to take it.

At the sight of Kol standing at the bottom of the stairs, everyone grew silent, with different expressions covering their faces. Elena looked dismayed, her attempt to remind me how dangerous this world was for him, while Alaric just looked indifferent. Jeremy's face was twisted in annoyance, but it didn't really seem to have anything to do with Kol. On the contrary, he actually seemed to like Kol.

Tyler's tightened eyes and pressed lips was the expression that had me moving Kol towards the door, away from everyone and closer to safety from Klaus.

He didn't say anything, only gave my hand a small squeeze before moving to open the door.

Jeremy stood from the table suddenly, while Kol was in the process of heading outside, but for whatever reason, he stopped. I was too focused on him to pay much attention to Jeremy, and Kol suddenly looked horrified, the lids of his eyes widening as he turned back to face me.

I folded my arms over my chest and stepped closer to Kol, who pulled his phone out and began typing on it. Whatever he had to say, it must've been something Tyler didn't need to hear, so I waited beside him, glancing over my shoulder at the people in the kitchen.

Jeremy was further into the kitchen than I could see, and Tyler seemed to be focused on something, maybe trying to listen to either Jeremy's phone conversation or any conversation between Kol and me. Since there was none, I didn't know what he was trying to hear.

Elena, however, was looking at the two of us with a furrowed brow and tightened eyes, her attempt to portray confusion at something going on. If I had to guess, it was probably the fact that Kol stopped halfway out the door.

 ** _Nik is the one on the phone with Jeremy! I couldn't make out everything, but I would recognize his voice anywhere._**

My feet were moving away from Kol without thinking twice about it, as I needed to get into the kitchen. Kol had come back inside as well, and right now, I don't think either of us were concerned about the consequences of this.

Right now, all we needed to do was figure out why Klaus called Jeremy. How did he get Jeremy's number?

When I got in the kitchen, there was a strange, empty look clouding Jeremy's face, the face of someone who had just been told to do something without any reason why. All he knew was that his mind was telling him to do something that he couldn't say no to.

My eyes moved down towards his wrist, where the vervain bracelet Elena had gotten him usually rested, but it wasn't there.

"Who is this?" Tyler asked. "I know you're the new guy and all, but what are you doing here?"

"He's my partner in chemistry," I said, once again using partial truths to convincingly lie to a vampire. "He came over to get some notes he missed in class."

Tyler seemed convinced, enough that he didn't press it further and actually stood himself up from the table. "Well, this has been . . . not so fun, but I appreciate the food offer."

Alaric took a sip of his water and let out a scoff. "Some other time."

Things were a bit awkward as Tyler nodded, the uncomfortable aura in the room screaming about an unwanted guest. Of course I knew Tyler being in here wasn't something any of us wanted, but how had he gotten in here?

The empty look never left Jeremy's face, but I waited to bring it up until I heard the sound of the door closing to say anything about it.

"Something's wrong," I said. "Jeremy, where's your bracelet?"

He looked down at his wrist for a moment and then back up to me, his eyebrows furrowed. "I-I don't know."

Elena groaned. "That's why Tyler wanted to hang out with you. He was trying to get your bracelet. Who was that on the phone, Jeremy?"

Jeremy's jaw tightened, his eyes like daggers as he looked over at Elena. "Screw you. I'm out of here."

Kol surprised everyone when he took a step towards Jeremy, holding his hand out towards him to stop him from taking another step. "You need to hold on there, mate."

"Dude, get out of the way," Jeremy snapped. "I like you, and I'm glad you make my sister happy, but you have no idea what goes on in this town. If I were you, I'd get back where you came from as fast as you can."

My eyes widened. "Jeremy! What has gotten into you?"

"I have to get to work," he said, but the very words felt empty, like there was no real meaning behind him.

What had Klaus compelled him to do?

Kol had to let Jeremy go, as there was nothing he could do to erase whatever compulsion Klaus had him under. All he could do was watch and listen carefully, focusing on whatever Jeremy was doing as he slammed the door behind himself.

Elena's breaths became unsteady, her arms folding over her chest as she tried to get a grip on things. "Kol, you should probably go."

"Shit!"

None of us had any idea what he was talking about, but whatever it was had him turning on his heels and running towards the door, which I was quick to follow behind. Whatever it was definitely had something to do with Jeremy's compulsion, and I wasn't going to stand back and let him get himself killed.

Kol ripped the door open in time just for everyone else to get a full view of what he was hearing—the SUV roaring down the street towards Jeremy, who was just frozen in the middle of it.

"Jeremy, no!" I heard Elena screech behind me, but she had no way of making it to the door in time. I tried to get out the doorway, but at the sight of Kol disappearing from my side, my entire body froze in place.

The only thing I saw happening then was Jeremy's body go flying into the grass on the side of the road, just as the black SUV racing down the street crashed into Kol.

* * *

 **A/N: The lyrics are from the song _Mixed Signals_ by Ruth B.**

 **This is all I'm gonna have time for today, but I hope you guys enjoy it! Happy Thanksgiving! For those out there who don't celebrate Thanksgiving, happy Thursday!**


	15. 14: Cleaning Up the Mess

"My point of view has been altered . . .

. . . I just wanna rock the boat and raise some hell.  
Set fire to my own damn bed 'cause I never wanna sleep again.  
I just wanna rock the boat and kiss and tell.  
Set fire to my own damn mind and leave inhibitions behind.  
But I don't care about the repercussions.  
I don't care about the repercussions.  
Just as long as my blood keeps rushing."

* * *

The sound was loud, the front of the SUV smashing much harder than the hybrid inside was prepared for. Had it been Jeremy, he probably would've taken the most damage, but Kol put himself in front of it instead, risking not only his secret but his safety.

What did he expect his hybrid to say then? "Oh, a vampire stopped me from killing Jeremy, but it wasn't any vampires we've seen in town so far."

He had stood his ground when the SUV hit him, which was what caused all of the damage to the vehicle. His own arm looked completely bent out of shape, especially as I got closer, but he just snapped it right back, like it was nothing.

For him, it probably wasn't.

While the hybrid was stun locked, from both the wreck and the surprise turn of events, Kol rushed around to the driver's door of the SUV and ripped the guy out. The hybrids eyes began glowing yellow, and he lunged for Kol, who had his heart torn from his chest before the guy even got a chance to sink his teeth into him.

It wasn't the first time I had seen this kind of thing, as there had been plenty of death in Mystic Falls, but I wasn't even standing ten feet away when it happened.

He tossed the extracted heart into the open door of the SUV, shoving the body to that side as well. There was blood dripping down his hand, as if he had just dipped it into a bucket full, but he didn't just hop in the car and drive away.

Instead, he slowly turned back to face me, back to face my sister and Alaric, who stood a good ten feet away from me.

"You stay away from us!"

Elena's words were trembling, and I found myself spinning back on my heels away from Kol, towards my terrified twin sister. "Wait! He's not going to hurt us. He just saved Jeremy!"

The fear dissolved into anger, which was burning even brighter than the fear had been. "You knew he was a vampire?"

"Of course I did," I said, but to try and deflect some of the anger away, before it got to me too much—I _hated_ making Elena mad at me—I folded my arms over my chest, shifting my weight to the other side of my body. "I can feel the magic in a vampire's blood, remember?"

"W-Why didn't you tell us?" she asked, her words so choked with rage that they were struggling to leave her lips.

"Because with everything going on right now, I didn't think you would trust him," I insisted. "You would think he was working for Klaus, but he's not. He hates Klaus, more than we do."

"So is that why you're here then?" Elena asked, finding a way to shift her anger away from me as well. "To figure out a way to take down Klaus?"

"That was why I came here, yes," Kol said, speaking up for the first time since everything had happened.

This was it, now or never. What had been a well-kept secret for almost a month was suddenly blowing up in our faces.

Of course we had prepared a lie to tell, a story to give him that _didn't_ let them know he was an Original vampire. It was so eloquently woven with the truth that we would be able to pull it off, if I executed it right.

She took a deep breath, her anger faltering just a touch. "And my sister?"

"Took me by surprise."

This wasn't the response I think she expected to hear from him, but it was enough to calm her down. Her eyes weren't burning, though her posture was still very stiff, her shoulders pulled back as her jaw set. "Fine. If . . . if my sister trusts you, so do I. What do you know about Klaus?"

"More than you could even imagine," he said, taking a deep breath as he watched her relax just a little. He had mentioned once that if anyone ever found out he was a vampire, he didn't necessarily need them to like him. He just wanted them to trust him with me, to know that he wasn't going to do _anything_ to hurt me. "Let me do something with the body, and we'll talk."

Though I wanted to stay by Kol, to make sure he was alright, I had to check on Jeremy. The fall from Kol's push had probably been pretty rough, on top of not knowing why any of that was actually happening.

When I got around the SUV, I found him sitting on the grass, his arms wrapped around his legs as his eyebrows furrowed.

I knelt down in front of him. "What did Klaus say to you? On the phone."

"I don't know," he admitted. "I don't remember. It had to have been him, though, right?"

"It was him," I agreed, and I sat down on the grass beside him, close enough that he could feel the comfort but far enough away that he had the space he always desired. "Are you okay?"

"A bit sore, but I'll live," he said, sending a half-smirk my way. "Thanks to your new boyfriend."

"He's not gonna hurt us," I said, but I was able to smile back at him. "He wants what we all want."

Jeremy took a deep breath and made his first attempt to stand back up, which was met with great resistance. He was probably more sore than he realized, but the pain didn't rear its ugly head until he actually tried to move.

"We'll see."

Kol stepped around the car now as well, offering a hand down to Jeremy. "I'd offer you some blood, but you probably don't want anything from me right now."

"No, man, it's not just you," Jeremy said. "I haven't seen a good side to having vampires around yet. You saved me, though, and I'm grateful for that. You could've just let me die, and no one would've known there was anything you could do to help me."

"Believe it or not, I care more about protecting Darcy than keeping my identity a secret," he said, around the same time Jeremy actually took the hand he had offered down to him. "Are you sure you're alright, mate? I'm afraid I pushed a bit too hard."

"Nah, I'm good," he disagreed. "Thanks for, you know, saving my life."

"Do me a favor and put on your ring," he said, and from the way he locked gazes with Jeremy, I could only assume he was compelling him. "Don't take it off unless I tell you otherwise."

Jeremy blinked a couple of times, but he nodded. With a furrowed brow, he stepped around Kol, around the busted SUV, and headed inside, back wherever he had put the Gilbert ring, which on other occasions would've saved him from dying from that car crash.

Pushing myself up from the ground was a lot easier for me than it had been Jeremy, and I stepped closer to Kol, leaving no room between us for anything more than air and maybe a thin stick. "Thank you."

Kol's gaze peeled away from my brother as he reached the porch, coming over to find me so close to him. There was something dark inside, but burning past that was the same things I had seen just a few minutes ago, when we were back in my room being a normal couple.

As normal as we could be anyways, all things considered.

"I'm so sorry."

"Don't be." I placed my palm against his cheek, and his face seemed to curl into the touch. "You saved my brother."

"I'm going to have to be a little more careful," he murmured, and he placed one of his hands onto mine. "While I'm gone, make sure your sister doesn't tell all her friends. The less people who know one of the doppelgängers is dating a vampire, the better."

"Okay."

The one single word was hard to get out, after the word he had said for the first time. Nothing much _had_ been said about what we were, and while _I_ considered us to be dating, it had never been formally discussed. We hung out like a normal couple would, but Kol had never said the words "dating" or "girlfriend." All he had told me was that I was different from other women he had come across.

This was a real relationship. This was _real_.

His lips grabbed onto mine with the fervor of a goodbye, but I knew it was only temporary. After getting rid of the body, as I'm sure he was pretty good at, he was coming back to explain everything to us.

It _was_ goodbye for now, though, which in Mystic Falls could mean goodbye forever.

Today wasn't going to be one of those days, thanks to his daring rescue. It had been easy enough for him to do, but there was a consequence attached, something he didn't even seem to think twice about.

When his lips let go of mine, he walked back around the SUV and climbed in, wasting no time putting it in gear and driving off.

With all the damage done to the front of it, I was pretty impressed that it still worked.

As I watched him drive away, with just the drops of blood and scattered pieces of glass strewn about the street, my mind wouldn't stop thinking about what he had said for the first time. It was a horrible thing to think about, in the face of everything that had just happened, but it was all I could think about, at least right now.

One of the doppelgängers is dating a vampire.

Labels and words had never been such a big deal to me, but hearing Kol say them gave them an entirely new meaning.

He wouldn't waste his time dating someone that he didn't think he'd be able to be with forever, if there wasn't even the slightest possibility.

To him, I was a potential forever.

* * *

 **A/N: The lyrics are from the song _repercussions_ by Bea Miller.**

 **I got a chance to post another chapter today, so here it is! When I originally planned to only post one chapter, I didn't actually realize the cliffhanger that it ended with until I was posting it. Haha. But, here's the next chapter, last one for the day. :) It's not such a bad cliffhanger, though there are still some questions left behind.**

 **To salvatoresister887, I tried to be specific in the prologue about her eyes and hair but may not have been. Idk if there's another chance where I can put in the way her hair and eyes look, but I will try. One eye is a very pale blue, ice blue basically, while the other is the same chocolate brown as Elena's, and her hair is ash brown, kind of a greyish tinted brown. It doesn't really look grey, but it's kind of a dull brown. _I_ think the color is pretty, but some people don't.**

 **Read, review, and enjoy! :)**


	16. 15: History

"You gotta keep this coming.  
Tell it like you know it, but you don't know nothing.  
Your call, we can settle this like gentlemen,  
Or meet me out the back to end it all and start again."

* * *

Damon's skeptical eyes hadn't moved off of Kol since Kol had gotten back from dumping the body. Kol didn't expect to see him here, but Elena had already told him what happened. She had gone inside and called him while I was outside talking to Kol, so he was here not even five minutes after Kol left, telling me that I was absolutely idiotic.

It wasn't idiocy; it was the beginning of love.

It was crazy to imagine that I was falling in love so quickly, but love _was_ crazy, wasn't it? Nothing about love made any logical sense or reason, but it didn't really have to. The heart was a stubborn thing, wanting things that it sometimes shouldn't, but in the end, it wanted what it wanted, not what logic and reason wanted. Sometimes, those things aligned, but in the case of soulmates, there wasn't a such thing as logic and reason.

Soulmates are the person in your life that make you the best you that you can be, without even trying. They make you unafraid to live your life however you choose, even if it means pissing people off and doing what everyone around you might think stupid or reckless.

This wasn't reckless. Above all else, I truly believed that I could trust Kol. He had no reason to lie to me, about any of it.

"Okay, so, we've got three missing Originals, two of which none of us have ever seen," Damon said, the corners of his eyes tightening further as he continued to stare into Kol, as if he should be intimidated by him or something. "A mysteriously old vampire who knows Klaus better than anyone we've ever met before comes into town, and you expect us to believe that you're not one of them?"

"I don't care what you believe," Kol said. "As long as you believe this: Klaus will not harm any of you."

Damon snorted. "How can you stop him? Only Originals have the strength to stand up to Klaus, and no matter how old you are, you can't match his strength. A single bite from Klaus will kill you."

"Magic is the only thing left in the world that can kill an Original," Kol reminded him. "You have a powerful witch at your disposal, from one of the most powerful lines of witches, and another who has only started to touch base with her abilities."

"What do you know about magic?" Elena asked, but just hearing Kol talk began to ease some of _her_ fear. "I thought witches hated vampires."

Kol shrugged. "We have one thing in common. We all hate Klaus."

"Or so you say."

"Damon, I have no reason to lie to you," he said, showing a great amount of restraint and patience that I wasn't sure he had in him. He had shown more than once that his patience was a very thin line, but right now, he was holding himself together well. "If I wasn't telling you the truth, I could've let Jeremy die, but I didn't. I exposed myself to save him because I don't want to hurt any of you."

"For now," Damon allowed, and he downed the rest of the drink he had made himself prior to Kol getting here. "Say we help you kill Klaus. Then what?"

Kol actually scoffed, his eyebrows raising a bit while his eyes drifted away from Damon, over to find me. "You act as if it's going to be easy."

I rolled my eyes. "Damon, will you just drop it?"

"You may find this hard to believe, Darcy, but I'd like to make sure you don't end up dead, too," he snapped.

"If I were an Original, being in Mystic Falls would be completely idiotic," Kol pointed out.

A rather dark smirk twisted onto Damon's face as those piercing eyes found Kol again, the gleam much darker than the actual blue of his eyes. "If you're not an Original, you'll have no problem meeting Klaus then."

"Actually, I would," Kol disagreed. "Klaus knows me. He knows that I've made it my life's goal to destroy him the same way the he destroyed me."

He was exceptionally good at that, but they had all probably made quite a few enemies over the years, especially if they treated people the way Klaus was treating all of us. Lying had probably been something he had just gotten very skilled at.

Skilled enough that I wouldn't notice . . . .

"What did he do to you?" Alaric asked, speaking up into this conversation for the first time since Kol had actually gotten back. He had voiced his disapproval before he got there, stating that we shouldn't just trust vampires who show up out of nowhere, but once Kol got here, those protests had silenced a bit.

Kol allowed himself to look away from me, over towards Alaric, and he let out a large sigh. "He destroyed my family."

"Alright, so we won't tell Klaus he's here," Elena spoke up, looking over to Damon now with a rather pointed stare. "Right now, I think it's best if we keep his vampirism to ourselves, from everyone."

My eyes tightened. "Including Stefan."

"I don't think he'll be a problem," Damon protested. "He hates Klaus as much as this guy seems to."

"No, Damon," I said. "I'm serious. We don't know who Stefan is right now. We don't know what he'll do, and if he finds out someone else knows about the coffins, he might kill him."

Damon rolled his eyes. "Fine. We won't tell Stefan either."

"Thank you."

"I'm still not okay with this," he said, taking a deep breath before walking the glass in his hand over to the sink. After setting it in there, he came over and pulled me up out of the chair I was sitting in, only so he could wrap his arms tightly around me. "But you've been brighter these past few weeks. I can't take that away from you."

I wrapped my arms around Damon's muscled torso and smiled, my eyes fluttering shut as I took in the woody smell of his own cologne. "I appreciate it."

"That doesn't mean _you're_ off the hook," he said. Even though I wasn't looking up at his gaze, I knew who he was talking to. "There are three people in this world I will protect above all else, and you happen to be in close contact with one of them. If anything happens to her because of you, you'll have to answer to me. You may be older, but I'll be a lot more pissed off."

"I swear to you, Damon," Kol said, allowing all irritation at the situation and distrust Damon was showing towards him, for what seemed like no reason. "I have absolutely no intentions of hurting Darcy. I meant it every time when I said that's the last thing I want in this world."

"I don't know what all she's told you, but don't go getting any funny ideas about turning her," Damon warned. "It won't be that simple."

Kol took a deep breath. "Yes, Damon, I'm aware that she has an untriggered werewolf curse in her blood, just like I'm aware that she possesses a special type of magic gift. It makes me even more certain that we have to protect her from Klaus, what with him scouring the earth looking for more werewolves to turn into his little slave army. I also happen to know that turning someone who hasn't triggered their werewolf curse is essentially the same as turning a human. Just like they can be compelled—assuming they aren't Darcy and also a witch—they can be made into a vampire."

"How can you know that for sure?" Elena asked. "I don't want Darcy to be a vampire at all, but if Klaus ever finds out she's a werewolf, we may not have another choice if it means making sure she isn't turned into one of his sired goons. Tyler . . . he said that he would rip his heart out if Klaus told him to, and he didn't see anything wrong with that."

"The sire bond is a strange thing," he agreed. "They don't realize how crazy the things they say or do really are. All they can understand is that they have to do it, that if Klaus wants it, there's a reason for it, even if they can't figure out what that reason is."

"You didn't answer her question," Damon reminded him, around the same time I let go of him and sat back down in the chair I had originally been sitting in. "How can you know for sure turning Darcy like any other human will work the same?"

"It's how it worked for Klaus, right?" Kol pointed out. "I'm not entirely certain just yet, and with Klaus effectively killing off most of the werewolf population, it will be a hard theory to test out on anyone except for Darcy."

"Which you're absolutely _not_ doing!" Damon exclaimed.

Kol's eyebrows rose. "What? Why would I do that? You misunderstand me, Damon. Darcy is the only untriggered werewolf that I know, but that doesn't mean I will test it out on her. The only reason I care to know is to make sure she doesn't end up sired to the monster that is Klaus. If she ends up dead, that would be a lot worse."

"Let's just drop the talk of Darcy becoming a vampire," Elena suggested, but it was very clear that she was growing more and more uncomfortable the more this conversation carried on. "I don't even want to consider the possibility."

"It's not really your life to make that decision for," I reminded her.

Her eyebrows furrowed, her chocolate eyes widening. "What? Why would you want that?"

"Just because you don't doesn't mean that no one else does," I said, and I shrugged, as if it wasn't a big deal. To me, it wasn't, but of course it was to her. That was why Damon wouldn't turn me before, the whole werewolf thing aside. "Staying human is your choice. Finding a way to become a vampire is mine."

Alaric seemed just as confused as Elena. "You would lose everything that makes you who you are."

I shook my head. "No I won't. I'll still be Darcy, but Darcy on crack."

"You put that so eloquently."

I smirked over at Kol, loving the way his irritation had completely dissolved away to make room for the happiness that had spread across it like a sunrise breaking through the night sky at the crack of dawn. That first ray of light broke through, only to be followed by so many more that it seemed instant. "You got a better way to describe it?"

"Not particularly," he agreed. "Elena is right, however. Until we can know for certain what is going to happen when we turn you, without Klaus' blood, we can't really consider it an option."

"Fine." I folded my arms over my chest, placing them up on the table to give myself a bit of a prop as I looked to each person. Though Damon had known this was what I wanted, his expression mirrored doubt, maybe because of this new situation entirely. Alaric seemed uneasy, whereas Elena just looked upset. There wasn't any way to change her opinion on the matter, however, so I didn't bother trying.

She'd probably confront me about it later, in a more private setting, but that was fine. It was my life to make my own choices, as it was hers to make her own, but unlike her, I didn't want to grow old and have kids. The idea of staying young forever, of getting to explore eternity to the fullest, was too beautiful to pass up.

To be able to protect myself for a change . . . but I didn't want to kill anyone in the process. Even if it meant being the first vampire in the history of vampires to never kill someone, I wanted to try to be that vampire.

Considering the company I was choosing to surround myself with, that was probably going to be a challenge. Killing someone was inevitable, but maybe if I changed it to only killing someone threatening me, only killing someone in defense of myself or my family.

The conversation was continuing to die away, as the mention of me becoming a vampire had made those who didn't already know that it was what I wanted uneasy. Eventually, Damon found something to have to do and disappeared, giving one final warning to Kol on his way out.

"I should probably go, too." Kol stood from the table, reaching a hand out towards me, and I took it without hesitation. "I'll find those grimoires I was telling you about and see if any of them have what you're looking for in them."

"Thank you." I used his hand to pull myself up from the table, despite the people watching me. I didn't imagine that the conversation had made them any more eager about the idea of me getting close with a vampire who showed up in town out of nowhere, determined to kill Klaus, but I didn't really care. _I_ knew the truth, even if they didn't want to believe it.

When he reached the door, I placed a soft kiss against his lips. Since there were people watching, I didn't draw it out as much as I might've if we were alone, but it was enough that my heart was beating wildly against my ribcage, threatening to fall out and into his hands.

His thumb brushed against my cheekbone as a wide smile twisted onto his lips. "I'll see you tomorrow, darling. We can start practicing tomorrow if you'd like."

"Sounds good."

The door opened, letting in a gush of near-winter air as he slipped back out of it, just barely moving at a human speed to do so. He wasn't necessarily eager to get away from me, but he knew I wasn't a fan of the cold. It was better than the sweltering hot, but that didn't mean I liked being cold.

If there was a way to be perfectly content, temperature wise, I was definitely going to take it.

"We have to do something about Jeremy."

The statement came out of nowhere, and it was definitely not the first thing I expected Elena to say after the vampire company left.

Jeremy hadn't come down out of his room since Kol had compelled him to go and put his ring back on, but it had been a busy day. He was either resting after nearly being run over with a car, or he was talking to Bonnie, doing homework—normal teenage boy stuff.

My eyebrows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"We need to give Rebekah over to Klaus, in exchange for Jeremy's life."

* * *

 **A/N: The lyrics are from the song _Better Off This Way_ by A Day to Remember.**

 **I'm almost completely finished writing this story! I'll get the outline for the sequel written up and decide if I'm going to make a third installment or end it on the second part, which will be called You and Me. Both titles come from song titles from Niall Horan's new solo album, which is actually called Flicker.**

 **Anyways, I'll post another chapter later today! Hope you guys are enjoying this story! Let me know what you think. :)**


	17. 16: The Dagger Removal

"There's a thin line between the dark side  
And the light side."

* * *

The home-in-the-works around me wasn't somewhere I thought I might end up, not by choice, but it was safest for me to confront Klaus. If he got upset about something, I had the element of surprise on my side, and I could always use magic to stun him long enough to get away.

What was I going to do, though? Light a candle? I knew the words for a pain infliction spell, but with nothing but my blood to fuel it, what could I really do to him?

The way Klaus was glaring at me, the darkness in his heart clouding over the depths of deep blue eyes, reminding me of the unexplored parts of the sea. There was so much about _him_ that was unexplored, too, parts of him that we never really thought to look into.

What had happened to him to make him this way? To turn him against his family the way that he had?

"If you weren't the only doppelgänger I believe might stand a chance at remaining human, I'd probably kill you for showing up here right now," he snapped, the corners of his eyes tightening a bit further, despite the outwardly pleasant smile that grew on his face. "Stefan's gone and ruined my good mood again it seems."

"Well, that's a shame," I sighed before shrugging my shoulders, both to show indifference and loosen the stiff muscles in them. "I don't care about Stefan. This is an exchange."

He let out a breath of a laugh, allowing his smile to grow wider to show off the perfectly straight teeth that seemed to be a vampire trademark. "An exchange? What might you have to offer me, love?"

"Give me your word that you'll leave Jeremy alone, and I'll tell you."

His eyebrows wove together, the tightness of his jaw loosening enough that for just the briefest of moments, I wasn't so afraid of him. "If what you have to offer me is compelling enough, sure. I'll leave Jeremy alone."

I nodded. "I have Rebekah."

The anger was back in a second, the darkness clouding over any sense of safety and security I had once felt. It was probably stupid anyways; he had killed Elena, and when finding out about me, he almost killed me too—probably would have if his curiosity of my doppelgänger blood hadn't gotten the better of him.

"You what?" he practically growled at me.

It took a very deep breath in and out to get my heartrate under control, along with the reminder that there was nothing he could do to me, at least nothing that he _would_ do. He said it himself; I'm the only one who he believes will make it out of this town alive.

Little does he know that I'm the only one who doesn't want to.

"Elena is headed to the Salvatore's place right now," I said, when my fears were under control and out of the way. Right now, we had to do this, to protect Jeremy if nothing else. Kol's biggest concern was protecting me, in the same way that Damon's biggest concern was protecting Elena, and me in a way. "She's going to distract Damon while you and I go in there. I'll show you where her body is."

"Funny thing, I went over and had a drink with Damon the other day," he said, his voice laced with the thick accent that slurred some of his words. "He told me that he hadn't seen her."

"Because she wants to kill Elena," I said. "Elena was the one who daggered her."

"Yes, you lot and your whole plan to kill me," he said, allowing his dark smile to come back out as he began studying my face a bit further. "Why should I trust you? What if this is just another trap? I am curious about what happened to Tony and all."

"I have no reason to lie to you," I said. "And what happened to Tony is he tried to run over my brother. He died because of it, and that's all you really need to know."

He scoffed. "Well, I could drain the vervain out of you and find out the truth myself, but I'll just have my hybrids keep a closer eye on you, maybe have my sister watch you while you're at school. She's a fickle one, but if I let her think she'll have her chance to kill Elena, she'll do whatever I want."

I shook my head. "She can't go for Elena. I'm walking around with vampire blood in my system at all times. If _anything_ happens to Elena, I'll kill myself in a heartbeat."

Seeing his nostrils flare, his jaw lock up so tightly that even he wouldn't be able to pry it open with his vampire-werewolf strength, I knew that what I said had touched a nerve, maybe even the same nerve that Stefan had danced on earlier. I didn't know what Stefan had said or done, but whatever it was, it had Klaus on edge, even more so than usual.

"You would be wise to remember what I do to those who spite me."

I shrugged. "Keep your sister under control, and you can have all my blood that you want. I'll even come in for a weekly donation."

"Fine," he allowed. "I can agree to keep my sister from hurting yours, as two doppelgängers is better than just one. Don't go doing anything stupid, however. The Petrova doppelgänger bloodline needs to continue, and as you and Elena are the only children Isobel had before she tragically died—"

"Don't do that," I cut him off, but I could feel my own jaw clenching as the corners of my eyes began tightening up so much that parts of my vision were obscured. "Don't bring what you've done to our family into this. You're making it harder to make a bargain."

His smile came back out now, in the face of the horrible things he had done, and all traces of evil was gone, aside from the fact that his joy _was_ evil; it was evil because it came from something horrible he had done, and for what? To force Elena, who had already agreed to do the ritual anyways, into doing the ritual?

Isobel was a lot of things, none of those which were a good mother, but for all her faults, she had kept the secret of the second daughter safe. Even under compulsion, even when it might have saved her life, she didn't tell anyone that there were potentially two doppelgängers. She let everyone believe that there was only one, that Elena was her only child.

"So run this plan of yours by me again," he said, after a few more moments of gloating in all that he had done.

"Elena is on her way to the Salvatore house, to distract Damon however she needs to in order to get us down into the cellar," I said before pausing to take a deep breath, folding my arms over my chest as I did. "She and I are going to go in, saying that we're looking for something for Bonnie. While she's talking with him, you follow me down to the cellar. Before taking the dagger out of Rebekah, you have to give us all time to get out of there. She could kill any of us because of what Elena did to her."

"It wasn't Elena alone," he pointed out. "You allowed it to happen."

I shook my head. "To be honest with you, I didn't know she had done it until after it was all said and done. When we were all loading up to head to the homecoming dance, I asked where Rebekah was, and that was when they told me. Something about me disapproving if they waited too long."

"Sometimes, you have to do things that are otherwise unpleasant for the sake of necessary plans to carry out," he agreed, giving me a larger than life smile as he sat the empty glass in his hand down on a nearby table, which had the plans for whatever mansion he was building around him. "It's probably best that you can't become a vampire. You would make a horrible one, probably wouldn't survive very long. Elena has what it takes, but you, not so much."

I snorted. "Right because there's no way to survive by being a decent person. People who are decent have friends, you know. Family who doesn't hate them."

The smile fell off his face in an instant, all traces of humor gone when those eyes found mine again. "Yes, well, let's just get on with getting my sister out of the cellar at the Salvatore's then."

"Not until you tell me that we have a deal," I said. "If we don't, I'll call Damon right now and have him move her body. Your sister in exchange for my sister and my brother."

"You have my word that I will leave your brother alone, and that Rebekah will not kill your sister."

Setting off after that was uncomfortable, and not because there was a long drawn out car ride to the Salvatore boarding house. The uncomfortable part was that Klaus had to hold me while he ran there, moving faster than any car could've gotten us there.

Elena was just pulling in when we got there, so we had the perfect timing. She was going to be enough distraction for Damon, as his feelings for my sister had been raging as of late. All the time he had spent with her, absent of Stefan being there, had brought him closer to her, made him fall harder for her.

Klaus stood back hidden, standing completely silent, while Elena and I knocked on the front door.

Damon opened the door in a second, and at the sight of Elena and me standing there, his eyes grew wide at the same time his brow furrowed. "Uh oh. The Gilbert twins are showing up unannounced in the middle of the night. Is there something I should be worried about?"

"Bonnie just asked us to stop by and look for a grimoire with a particular spell she's looking for," I said. "Something unrelated to all this mess."

He nodded and took a step to the side, holding a hand towards the interior of the house to gesture us in. "You'd know what she was looking for better than me. Are you sure you don't have them at home?"

Elena's eyebrows furrowed. "Have them at home? Why would she have them at home?"

My eyes widened, at the same time Damon's did. He hadn't realized that it was a big secret, and truth was, I _hadn't_ gotten the chance to tell Elena yet. That, however, wasn't my main concern; what I was concerned about was the man standing just outside, listening in to our conversation and hearing far too much.

He groaned. "Come on, Darcy, you said you were gonna tell her. I thought she was on board with this, too!"

"Not everyone is on board with everything your crazy brother is doing right now," I disagreed. "I haven't gotten the chance yet, Damon, but I'll tell her on the way back home."

He rolled his eyes. "No you won't, so I'll fill you in. Stefan came by and decided that it would be best if Darcy stopped pretending she wasn't a witch and start getting better with her magic."

"Damon, Klaus has hybrids stalking us!" I hissed, but it was hard to even breathe right, much less stick to the current plan. "Now is really not the time to talk about this!"

He held his hands up. "Fair enough. Sorry. Forget I said anything. You know where we keep the grimoires. Any idea what you're looking for?"

"I know exactly what I'm looking for."

It would've been easy to stay in that conversation, to hide away from the truth that had just come to light, but when Elena mentioned needing a drink, after hearing that I planned to start using my magic and knowing that Klaus was outside, which completely ruined all elements of surprise, it gave me the distraction I needed to sneak Klaus and me both inside. The door was still left open, and while I pretended to close it, as Damon led Elena away from the door and into the den where they had more alcohol stored away than was even remotely safe for someone, I didn't actually close it but instead held it open just enough for Klaus to slip inside.

My footsteps were loud enough for Damon to hear, if he was actually paying attention. By this point, I didn't figure he was because he had bought what I was saying, and he was probably trying to attempt to calm Elena down about it all. She had always been the most vocal in keeping my magic hidden, keeping me weak so that no one ever had to know, so she would've been the hardest to get on board with this new plan for me to learn it.

It didn't really matter what she wanted, though. Kol was going to teach me everything I needed to know, and that was that. She didn't have a say in how I was able to protect myself, and at this point, what was it going to hurt? Klaus already knew.

Sneaking down the hall and into what was a basement for most families, but a cellar for the Salvatores, I could sense Klaus right behind me. The magic in his veins was different from the magic in Kol's, and it always gave me the creeps. Maybe it was all that Klaus had done, or knowing what all he really was, but it didn't make me feel good to have him standing behind me, especially so close.

Getting into the cellar without making a lot of noise proved a lot more difficult than I had prepared for, mostly because the doors didn't know how to open without creaking. It wasn't a soft and gentle creak either; it was the kind that a vampire didn't have to be listening for to hear.

The only chance we had was if Elena was doing her job well enough, which knowing Damon and Elena, she definitely was.

Their relationship was blossoming, in a way I was more than happy to see. Everyone else disagreed with it, said that Damon didn't deserve love or anything good to happen to him because of all the bad that he did, but I knew better. Everything he had done had been because he was hurt, because he lashed out. It wasn't justified by any means, but vampires feel things more powerfully than humans. What seemed like an act of betrayal to us, one that we might not be able to recover from for a while, was absolute hell for him, the worst kind of betrayal there was.

Katherine had done a horrible number on him, one that led him to do terrible, terrible things. Sometimes, when he thought no one was looking, he let the pain show. He let himself feel remorse for every wrong choice he had made along the way, but at the end of the day, it never stopped him from making another choice.

Maybe Klaus was right; maybe I wasn't cut out for the vampire thing. Sure, I could make the best choice for everyone, one that might get one person killed but might save a hundred more, but was that gonna lead to survival?

Then again, with Kol on my side, who could really kill me? It wasn't like a werewolf bite would do me in, and neither would a wooden stake. From what Jeremy and Kol said, hybrids could only be killed through decapitation or heart extraction.

We just had to figure out how it was possible to make me a hybrid without Klaus' blood, or if it was possible.

Finding Rebekah's body, still dressed and ready for the homecoming dance, was simple enough. There was only one holding cell down there, and that was where they decided it was best to hide her body. Until this point, Klaus didn't even know there was a cellar down here, so hiding her in it was easy to do.

He did now, but it didn't matter. He wasn't going to let anything happen to Jeremy or Elena, and while some might worry that they were in danger, I wasn't. Kol wouldn't let Klaus do anything to hurt me.

Unless he had to show himself to protect me. At that point, I didn't actually know if he would choose me or himself. I liked to think that he would choose to save me, but Klaus had done a lot of horrible things to him over the years. Hiding from his brother until he had a plan for revenge set in motion was the best thing for him.

I didn't say anything, only gave Klaus one last stern glance before turning and running away, leaving him with the body of his daggered sister to do whatever he wanted with it. Honestly, I wondered if he would even take the dagger out or just take her body with him, keeping the dagger in her chest until he saw fit to remove it.

Maybe if I had told him about what Rebekah knew . . . but Kol had mentioned that his sister could be used to his advantage, at first as an ally against Klaus but now to help sell his "not an Original" story. When I brought up the idea that she might not help him, as his siblings had all worked with Klaus against him before, he reminded me that he has all the daggers. While nothing in him wants to resort to using them, he will do what he has to protect himself.

That couldn't have been easy for him to bring himself to do, so I really hoped it didn't get to that point. Bringing him back from that, convincing him that he wasn't his brother, would be hard.

His siblings all probably deserved it, aside from Finn. He had been the only one who had never betrayed Kol before, had never helped Klaus dagger him at some point or ratted him out, knowing that he would be daggered for it.

How they could do that to their own brother was beyond me, but I didn't know the fear he must've held over them all.

What I really couldn't understand was why they didn't just leave. Kol never got much chance to leave; time after time, they daggered him any time he really tried.

I knew how this dagger removal process went; sometimes, it took quite a bit of time for the Original to wake up while others, it was a quick process. There wasn't much time for us to get away before Rebekah came back and was able to get her revenge somehow.

With a text sent to Bonnie, Caroline, and Matt, warning each of them to get home and stay there, I took off running up the stairs and towards the living room, where Damon was suddenly on alert at the sight of me.

"You should probably get out of here for a little while. Somewhere a blonde Original vampire can't get."

* * *

 **A/N: The lyrics at the beginning are from the song _If I Had You_ by Adam Lambert.**

 **Hope you guys enjoy! My day yesterday was pretty busy, and today might be as well, but I will try to post another chapter a bit later.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy. :)**


	18. 17: School Bells

"I gave up, jumped out the plane  
And hopped inside a drop of rain  
Look, in my eyes, a hurricane  
The wind, it smelled like sugarcanes."

* * *

Waking up late wasn't my style. I was usually always up with plenty of time to get dressed and dolled up, as Jeremy called it some mornings when my routine got in his way of being a normal teenage guy.

Today was a late rising day, so late that I barely had time to put any makeup at all. I threw on a fitted navy dress with a flared polka dot skirt, some wedge boots, and a loose fitting grey cardigan, with my ash brown hair in a tied ponytail that looked like I almost put some effort into it.

Elena was waiting on my bed when I hurried out of the bathroom, and her eyebrows were locked together, in a sort of way that made me forget that I was running behind; Kol and I had agreed to get to school as early as possible, to try and talk to Rebekah about the plan before Caroline got there and overheard.

My phone had a text from him when I first got up, telling me that he managed to find her out and about, and he was able to get her on his side of things; she agreed to go along with his identity as long as we were going to find a way to take down Klaus.

That was a relief. I didn't think Kol could handle it if he had to actually let us dagger her. He couldn't do it without showing everyone that he was an Original, but letting me do it would kill him.

Tears began rolling down Elena's cheeks, and I crossed the room, finding myself next to her warmth in a second. "What's wrong?"

She did her best to wipe the tears away, to stop them from messing up what little makeup she had put on, and she took a deep breath. "We have to send Jeremy away."

My eyebrows furrowed. "What? Why would we do that? Klaus isn't going to hurt him, remember? That was the whole point of going behind Damon's back last night."

"Because he's sixteen years old," she insisted. "He shouldn't have to worry about making new friends. He shouldn't have to go everywhere looking over his shoulder. The only things he should have to worry about are what girl he wants to date and studying for the big math test. Instead, he's gotta wonder if he should've packed his wooden stake before going to school!"

I shook my head. "Elena, you can't do this."

"I have to," she whispered. "I have to protect him. I can't protect you from it, but I can protect him."

"No, don't!" I exclaimed, and the idea of it all got my blood boiling. "Do you remember what happened last time you compelled him? He found out and hated you! And things are just starting to work back out between him and Bonnie! Don't you think they both deserve some happiness for a change?"

"What choice do I have?" she asked.

I snorted, the warm air that had seeped into my bedroom burning my nostrils. "Plenty! Let me talk to him, see if he really wants to get out of town."

"He won't," she said. "He'll want to stay here to try and protect us and Bonnie. He won't do what's best for him."

"Then he's not going," I said. "I know you wanna protect him, and so do I, but not this way. Besides, Kol compelled him to only take his ring off if Kol told him to."

Her eyebrows furrowed. "Why would he compel him to only take it off if he told him to? Why not compel him not to take it off at all?"

"I don't know." My muscles in my shoulders strained to life when my arms folded over one another, holding onto my stomach in an attempt to grip onto my sides, to try and remind myself that this was Elena. I didn't need to lose my temper on her. "There's probably some reason behind it."

"I mean, what do you really know about Kol?" she asked, but her own arms folded as the corners of her eyes tightened. "You don't find it a little bit odd that all he said about why he wants to kill Klaus is that Klaus destroyed his family? You know nothing about him, Darcy, and you're blindly trusting him."

A deep ache echoed through the bones of my jaws, grind through my teeth, as I realized my jaw had clenched, probably too tightly. " _You_ don't know anything about him. I knew he was a vampire from day one, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember you _lied_."

"Because I knew this was how you would react!" I exclaimed. "I felt the magic in his blood and asked him what he was doing here. He realized that I was a witch and told me the truth; he just wants to put Klaus down. He wants him to stop hurting everyone around him, like he did to Kol."

"What do you know about what Klaus did to him?" she asked. "All he said was that he killed his family. That's pretty vague."

"It's actually quite specific," I disagreed. "Kol came from a large family, centuries ago. They were friends with the Original family, and Kol was made a vampire because of their friendship. His sisters all served the Originals, one of them actually falling in love with Klaus, and one day, one of the sisters found the room where Klaus had stored the coffins. She took the dagger out of the one that was in there, but Klaus found her in there and killed her. Her sister found her dead body, and Klaus, after making her believe that it was Kol who had lost control of himself, had her ready to stake Kol. When Kol found out why, he confronted Klaus that night, who offered him an apology and a chalice of blood as peace offering. Kol took the offer, but after it was gone, Klaus informed him that it was the blood of his sisters, and that it tasted so sweet."

"Oh my God." Elena's eyes grew wide. "I knew he was twisted, but that's dark."

It was a pretty dark story, and I asked Kol when he told it to me if it might be too much, but he insisted it was the perfect story—because while it may not be the truth, it was a twist of the truth. It was how he felt about his brother.

He had Rebekah, who had once been Kol's closest sibling, turning against him over and over again. He killed his siblings with daggers over and over, with the fear of being daggered himself keeping him from removing the daggers from their chests over the years.

To him, it was like his siblings _had_ died by the hand of Klaus because every sense of family they all once felt was gone each time he shoved daggers through their hearts and they woke up later.

Elena didn't say anything more, only left my room and headed down the stairs. The gruesome story seemed to work, as Kol said that it would; a twist of the truth that was dark enough, no one would question it further. They would believe he was on their side with a story like that.

The second I knew she was gone, I dropped down under my bed and pulled out the box that I had done my best to hide towards the back, where no vampires could find it. What had started as a way to make sure no vampires got in my head while I slept turned out to work in my favor. At one point, we used to all ingest vervain as a precaution, even with vervain bracelets and whatnot, but the supply of it became limited, especially with the vampires in town had to start taking it with the Originals hanging around.

I kept a few strands of it for a just in case situation, not really knowing what kind of situation might call for vervain, but I broke off a piece of it and stuck it in my pocket before heading downstairs and grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge.

No one said anything the entire way to school, with Elena at the driver's seat and Jeremy in the back. I could hear his fingers tapping against the screen of my phone, and I kept a close check on mine—only a text from Kol that read **_If you were so cute, I'd be annoyed at how late you are_** —but hearing Jeremy texting away again brought a smile to my face, very similar to the smile Kol's text had.

It was different kinds of happiness. Jeremy was working to correct his mistake, not just letting the pain and guilt of it all consume him. This was the most grown up I'd ever seen him, and I was proud of him, and beyond happy.

When we arrived at school, Jeremy lingered by the car, as there were a couple of empty parking spots around that I imagined he expected Bonnie to take. Elena didn't even notice him waiting, as her thoughts were consumed with what she had mentioned to me.

With the strand of vervain still tucked into the pocket of my jacket, the water bottle in hand, my thoughts were on what she mentioned to—making sure she absolutely couldn't do that to him.

She was pulled out of the thoughts in her head when she looked up and noticed the two vampires standing not even fifteen feet away from us, both my boyfriend and the blonde Original who she knew would be out to get her the first chance she got.

Her hand reached out to grab my arm, to stop me from taking another step forward, and she pulled me closer to her, trying to keep me from moving forward, too.

Kol's face was empty of all expression, though the corners of his eyes were a bit tight, but when Elena stopped me, he just looked uncomfortable, like one might look if their favorite toy was taken away by someone they couldn't fight against to get it back.

Rebekah, however, had her nostrils flared, her eyes burning with the darkest of rages, and her arms folded so tightly over her chest that I wondered if she was going to break a bone. She was dressed in typical Rebekah fashion, wearing cute clothes that showed wealth and class, in a way all the Mikaelsons seemed to dress, even with different styles to do so.

Elena put her ear next to mine. "Darcy, we have to go. You said Klaus gave you his word, but that doesn't look like she's going to let us walk past. And why is Kol with Rebekah?"

I shrugged. "I'm sure they met over the years, and if Rebekah still wants Klaus dead, they have something in common."

"I'm going inside," she said, and she took a single step back from me. "It's safer around a crowd of people."

I nodded. "Yeah. I'll be right behind you."

Now that Elena was gone, keeping her eyes off of both Kol and Rebekah as she tried to safely scurry away, Kol was able to allow himself to express his emotions through facial movements and the slightest tightening of his jaw.

"You never mentioned that Nik was the one who killed our mother."

I closed the distance between us and bit down on my bottom lip. "You're right, I didn't. I didn't even think about it, to be honest."

Rebekah's lips pressed into a thin pink line, her eyebrows knitting together. "Kol tells me you're the one who removed the daggers from all of my siblings, yet you left me rotting at the Salvatore's. Why is that?"

"I couldn't just get down there to get you out," I reminded her. "It's a house full of vampires, none of which wanted you out. When I found out on the way to the dance that they had done that, no one would listen to me when I said it was a dick thing to do, so they moved you down into the cellar where I couldn't get to you."

"So how am I free then?" she asked, but some of the anger was fading away, at least a little bit.

I took a deep breath. "Klaus tried to kill Jeremy, so I got Elena to help me get you out in exchange for him to leave Jeremy and Elena alone."

"Why are you helping us?" she asked. "The people of this town have shown on more than one occasion that they don't like me or my family."

I shrugged. "We have a common goal, and to be honest, I've never really fit in with the beliefs and ideals of the people here. Remember? You told me I was different."

Though I knew she remembered, as it hadn't been more than a month ago for her, her face fell, those beautiful blue eyes of her falling towards the ground. "I-I don't want my brother dead forever."

"Well, that's fine," I assured her. "I don't wanna be a walking blood bag, so as long as he's not around for the rest of my lifetime, that's all good with me."

"Lifetime?" Kol pushed himself off the table he had been leaning against, his eyebrows woven together. "Darling, your lack of faith in my abilities to find a way around this wounds me."

"You said they didn't know who you were, but you didn't mention whatever this is going on," Rebekah said, and her hand gestured between the two of us. "What am I missing here?"

"All you need to know, Bex, is that I'm stupidly giving myself a weakness."

Her mouth fell open, her eyes growing wide, and she turned to face her brother completely, seeming to forget I was even here for the moment. "Oh my God. Kol, do you love her?"

"Do you trust me, Darcy?" he asked, and from the way his eyebrows rose, I could see that he had no intentions of answering his sister—which was quite a shame because I was a bit curious about that as well. He had mentioned on more than one occasion that I was a first for him, that he had never experienced anything real and passionate before, but I wanted to know if that had become love for him, or if it was crazy to even think he might love me someday.

"It doesn't matter, Kol, because there is no loophole to what your brother will do to my sister if I become a vampire," I said. "I could spend the rest of my life looking for one, but if he loses either of his doppelgängers, the other is fucked."

"We can run from Nik," he insisted. "He doesn't have to control you that way."

I shook my head. "I'm not dooming my sister to live her life on the run. She wants a life, a family, and that's no life for any kind of family."

"Then we'll find a way to incapacitate Nik until she has lived out her life, with whatever is in that coffin," he said. "Assuming it isn't something that will actually kill him. As much as I hate him, I can't imagine actually killing him myself."

"How do you plan to do that exactly?" I asked. "We've been working on it for a month now, and we still have no leads on how we might get it open. The spell it's sealed with isn't something anyone knows."

"Bonnie is a brilliant witch, and I imagine you'll pick up on it a lot better with someone actually willing to help you," he said, voice dripping with a confidence I was struggling not to match. There was so much light in his eyes, such a wide smile forming on his lips with just the idea of the hope we might have found. "We can find a way. The two of you will find a way to open the coffin, or I can show you the other thing we talked about the other night."

"Hold on a moment," Rebekah said, and she held a hand up in a way to sort of pause the conversation. "Let's go back to something he said—you'll pick up on it now that there's someone willing to help you? Are you a witch?"

Kol's eyes widened. "It hadn't even occurred to me that Rebekah didn't know. I am so—"

I put one of my fingers on his lips, in an attempt to silence his useless apologies, and gave him a soft smile. "It's okay. Klaus found out last night when we were getting Rebekah out anyways."

"How have you managed to keep this from us for this long?" she asked. "After Stefan was compelled to watch you and Elena closely while I hung around town, I never noticed the first sign of it."

"My magic is a bit different from anything I've ever seen before," I admitted. "I can't just pull power from nature like a normal witch can, such as Bonnie. My magic requires something different, an outside source of magic. Like the magic in my blood, the magic in a vampire's blood—"

"That reminds me." Kol reached into the pocket of his black peacoat, which was form fitted and very yummy looking on him, and opened his hand back up, to reveal something that I didn't expect to see.

It was a small golden oval, held on a golden chain with a small diamond in the middle of a pattern that looked like a star. Attached to it was a diamond wing and a small crystal crescent moon.

Along with the necklace, there were two small vials of what looked like blood, and from the strong magic I felt just by looking at them, I imagined that they were probably his blood.

"Everything is unpredictable," he said. "At any moment, my brother could decide that he only wants Elena to live and kill you, and I can't . . . I don't want that to happen. You deserve better than that. I told you that I wanted to find you another source of power, so I did."

"This amount of blood will only work for a short time," I said, though I could feel my eyebrows furrowing at the same time my lips were curling up, into a wide smile.

He nodded. "I know. One is for you to keep on you, and the other is for you to absorb the magic. This necklace doesn't have magic, but it's a vessel for it. I was rummaging through some old things last night and found it. It seemed useless when I found it, but I kept it anything—my fascination with magic and all. You can store other sources of magic there for when you need it, instead of losing it as time goes on."

It was hard to breathe when I looked away from the necklace in his hands and up towards his face, which was the softest I think I had ever seen it before. He looked so delicate, like a wilted flower on its last day of life, but there was something beautiful about the vulnerability he was showing, without even realizing he was, I think.

Quickened footsteps approaching from behind, stomping rather angrily on the leaves that had fallen onto the dying grass behind us, snapped me out of my haze, and I grabbed the stuff from Kol's hands, before whoever was approaching could see what he was giving me.

At the sight of Jeremy, with the best glare he knew how to give twisting his usually kind face, a relaxed breath pushed out of me, and I put the necklace and blood in the empty pocket of my coat, only so I could get the vervain out of my other pocket.

"Darcy, what are you doing?" he snapped.

"Relax, Jer." I popped the lid off the top of the water bottle and began grinding the bits of vervain in my hand into the water, getting as much of it in there as I could, to make the effects last long of course. Once it was done, I put the lid back up and began shaking it.

"I can assure you, Jeremy, that I have no quarrel with Darcy."

"I know how you Originals work, and I know what that means," he said. "Leave Elena alone, too."

A rather charming smile came onto her mouth as her eyes brightened, maybe the very idea of hurting Elena bringing out this chipper smile. "No promises."

With a sigh, my arm reached out towards Jeremy, holding out the bottle of water in it so he might get his mind on something else. "Klaus has your bracelet, and we can't take any chances."

Rebekah snorted. "Why? Afraid I'll compel your brother to kill your sister for me?"

"No," I said. "It's not you I'm worried about."

"Yes. Kol mentioned that my brother stole your vervain bracelet, so I'm sure he'll use that to his advantage," she agreed, still not accurately guessing what I was so worried about.

Jeremy's eyes tightened for a moment as they moved away from Rebekah, back towards Kol, who hadn't moved from where he stood when he handed me the bracelet. "How do you two know each other?"

"Kol has been chasing my brother for centuries," Rebekah said. "Before that, he was a family friend. My brother doesn't do well with friends, and he stabbed them all in the back—literally for some. He's been trying to kill my brother ever since, and for once, I'm not going to stand in the way."

"Oh." Jeremy's gaze fell back away from Kol, over towards the water bottle reached out towards him.

"Jer, just trust me, okay?" I said. "You need to make sure you stay on vervain until I can your bracelet back."

He took the bottle from me, as he wasn't a fan of being compelled for any reason, though when I asked him if he was okay with Kol compelling him to keep on the ring, he said that he didn't mind that compulsion.

"Yeah, sure," he said, and with one final glance at each vampire standing behind me, he left, just like that. He was probably off to actually find Bonnie this time, and I was so thankful he had somewhere to run away to.

"What was that about?" Kol asked, and I felt his hand come up to touch my shoulder, sending a warmth surging through me that I still hadn't gotten used to. "Last night, you said that you trusted Nik was going to leave him alone."

"It's not Klaus I'm worried about."

"Me?" Though I wasn't looking at him, I could hear how the idea that I didn't trust him hurt him, and I imagined his face mirrored that.

I turned back to face him and shook my head once again, making the sadness that had begun to creep into his eyes disappear at once. "No. My sister."

"Oh, is she stabbing someone else in the back now?" Rebekah asked, letting out a sarcastic snort before rolling her eyes. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Yeah, or she's planning to," I sighed. "I stood back and let her compel Jeremy once, and I won't do it again."

Even if it meant pissing Elena off to no end, I was going to do the right thing.

* * *

 **A/N: The lyrics at the beginning are from the song _Voices In My Hand_ by Kat Dahlia.**

 **Sorry I haven't been updating regularly! With the holidays passing, and then the family vacation coming up, I've been pretty busy, and I got behind on laundry, so . . . responsibilities and all.**

 **But here's the next chapter. I hope you all had great holidays! Read, review, and most importantly, enjoy! :)**


	19. 18: Selfish Moments

"We're out here in the boondocks  
With the breeze and the birds.  
Tangled up in the tall grass  
With my lips on hers.  
On the highway to heaven,  
Headed south of her smile.  
Get there when we get there.  
Every inch is a mile.

Body like a back road,  
Driving with my eyes closed.  
I know every curve like the back of my hand."

* * *

The light in my room didn't have the brightest bulb in the world, but it didn't stop me from seeing Kol's eyes flutter closed while my fingers continued softly tracing the cavern of his spine, feeling each and every ridge as I passed over a new crevice. The muscles of my mouth ached as a smile that probably matched the one he wore glued itself on. As much as I loved to see the joy in his eyes, the way they were closed now was just as nice to see.

He wasn't just laying there with his eyes closed; his body was completely relaxed, without a single care in the world.

It was the kind of relaxed that people only got if they trusted someone completely, and I didn't imagine an Original vampire allowed himself to get that comfortable with just anyone, especially after all his family had put him through.

I pressed my full hand against his back, allowing it to rub up further, towards his shoulders. The skin beneath my fingertips was soft, though it lacked the full warmth human skin might have. It wasn't cold and void of all warmth, and the softness, almost velvety to the touch, made up for any absence of heat.

My hand curled up towards the front of his shoulders while my body leaned into his, the skin-to-skin contact almost making me forget what I wanted to say.

"You act like you've never been loved like this before," I breathed into his ear, brushing against it with each word.

"I haven't."

Of course he had mentioned that I was a first, that no one had ever cared to know him more than the blood crazed Original vampire, but loving someone and intimacy were different things. He could've experienced this kind of thing without knowing love.

"Really?" I asked, the word barely making it out as my mind began to wander, to imagine what a life empty of such things would feel like.

Though Greyson and Miranda weren't my parents—at the time, no one knew that I wasn't related to them at all—they had always made sure to let us know we were loved, never made us feel unwanted. They always stressed the importance of things such as love and affection.

His arms reached out a bit so he could sit himself up, the muscles of his back and arms rippling in the most delightful way. While I was focused on how damn good he looked, he was turning himself around to face me.

He stretched his hand out to grab the back of my hand and shoved me towards him, grabbing onto my lips with his the second they were in range of his own.

With Kol, kissing had an entirely new meaning. Even kisses that were meant to be sweet and romantic, like this one, became something more, that one thing that led to another.

His fingers scrunched into my hair, the other hand sliding down to my back, to press my naked chest against his own. The distance that had been between our bodies was closed, my legs now straddling his hips as he held onto me, having his glorious way with my lips.

All too soon, his lips were ripped from mine, and he let out a breath, leaving those plump lips parted and waiting to be kissed again. "That was part of what made me so violet over the years. No one loved me, not even my family. I'm sure I knew some of it when I was a young lad, but for as long as I can remember, it's been life empty of all meaning. So I acted out, left trails of bodies, because even though my siblings all called me horrible things, they noticed me."

"I think it's about time someone showed you," I said. Moving with as much delicacy as I could, I let my fingers trace down his jawline before grabbing onto his face with my whole hand, holding onto it with a fierce delicacy that I hoped portrayed all the feelings I couldn't find words to say yet—feelings that I wondered might be love. "I would love it if I could be that someone."

His lips parted again, those warm eyes studying each and every inch of my face, and the distance between us was closed again, his lips against mine with a fervor that had become familiar without losing its spark.

My body was pressed back into the firm pillows beneath me in an instant, with Kol's naked and glorious body hovering over mine. His lips never parted from mine, but he didn't have to part to get me where he needed me to be.

His lips held me down while his hands left a blazing trail down my body, moving towards my legs, which he all but subtly separated as he positioned his own hips between them.

Pulling away with him dominating me like this was hard, but it had to be done, as he was almost to the point of no return. Once he was inside of me, there was absolutely no way I was going to let my conscience get in the way.

It surprised him enough that he actually fell down on top of me, though he was able to direct most of the weight away from me, to ensure he didn't hurt me.

"We can't do this again," I insisted at the same time a sharp twinge of pain shot through my bottom lip, as my teeth began to nearly pierce the skin. "It's wrong."

I had never seen him look at me so incredulously, those warm eyes so wide that I wondered if they might pop out of his head. "Wrong? What the hell are you talking about?"

"I mean, everyone's lives are exploding around us, and we're up here fucking all night?" I reminded him. "Come on. You have to see how that's just rude."

He rolled his eyes and pulled himself back up, hovering his delicious body over mine again, pressing his pelvis into me as a way to remind me of the raging boner he had at the moment—as if I could've forgotten. It wasn't exactly hard to find.

"I've been in a coffin for almost a century," he said. "Don't you think I've earned some fun?"

"I haven't."

The way he leaned into me got my heart thumping inside of my chest, at a speed that was probably pretty dangerous, and his soft lips began kissing along my neck, along the artery there that he was surely dying to sink his teeth into. "Mmm. Well, I need you to have fun, so you'll just have to be selfish for a little while."

A shaky breath passed through my parted lips, and his grip on my body only tightened. "Fine. I suppose a few selfish moments never hurt anyone."

"That's probably not accurate, but for the sake of keeping you underneath me, I'll pretend that it is," he murmured.

His lips found mine again, but it was very short lived this time. This time, it wasn't me that pulled away, but Kol—by disappearing completely. Since no one knew he was here, as they were all still pretty hesitant around him, we had prepared for this scenario, placing a set of pajamas on the night stand beside my bed so I could get dressed quickly, if Kol thought he heard someone coming.

With a large t-shirt and pajama shorts on, I was able to beat whoever was coming to the punch and yanked my bedroom door open.

Alaric stood there, with his hand raised as if he was about to knock, but at the sight of me, it fell back by his side, his dark brows raised.

He had always been attractive, for a teacher. There was something about his face that I just got—Jenna usually spared the dirty details since he was my teacher, but I wasn't repulsed when she would go on about how attractive he was.

Part of what made him so attractive was the personality behind it all. He was very loyal, with a dark sense of humor that was usually only amplified by alcohol and bad situations in Mystic Falls.

His usually light brown hair was a bit darker, damp and slicked back as if he had just gotten out of the shower and decided to come talk to me.

"Do you know what's up with your sister?"

My eyebrows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"You haven't noticed her acting a bit strange this morning?" he asked, and his muscled arms folded over his chest, broadening his wide shoulders and giving him a stance that, if I didn't know him, might seem authoritative.

"I did, but I thought it was about the whole Jeremy thing." My mind began to wander back to all that I had done, to make sure she couldn't rip his life away without his consent. If compulsion was wrong for a vampire to do for their own reasons, it was wrong for a vampire to do for any reason— _period_.

He took a deep breath and relaxed himself a bit, his eyes falling a bit to catch onto mine. "She's gonna do it."

"What?" I could feel my eyes widening, the burn from both weariness and excess air making them lightly water.

"Come on, Darcy," he groaned. "Don't make this harder than it has to be."

"You guys can't do this," I snapped. Even though I knew they couldn't do anything to him, the fact that they still wanted to try irritated me beyond belief. "It's his choice. I want him as safe as either of you, but you're taking away his free will. That's exactly what Klaus does to his hybrids. Sure, he does it for selfish reasons, but the concept is the same. If you guys do this, I'll tell Jeremy."

"Darcy, please," he sighed. "Let your sister do this."

I shook my head. "Why does she get to call the shots for everyone's life?"

He glanced over his shoulder, looking for any signs of an audience, and even though he didn't find one—both Jeremy and Elena's doors were closed, so I imagined they were probably already asleep—he stepped into my room, closing the door behind him.

"Keep your voice down," he whispered, though the corners of his eyes tightened. "Come on, Darcy, please understand what she's trying to do."

"No, I understand exactly what she's trying to do," I disagreed. "She's taking him away from the first piece of happiness he's felt in a long time. He deserves to be happy. He deserves to enjoy his life with Bonnie. Klaus has given me his word that he's going to keep him out of it, and I believe him, despite everything he's done. One thing he _hasn't_ done is lied to us. Bonnie will protect him from anything else this town has to offer."

"She can't protect his sanity!" he exclaimed, his own voice rising more levels than I think he meant for it to. When the words came out, his eyes widened a bit, and he rubbed his lips together. "He asked me this morning if I thought he needed to keep a stake on him while at school because there are vampires there now too!"

"Sending him away won't change what's already been done," I insisted. "You can't do this. He's happy. His life has gotten good again. He's worked to fix his mistakes, and he's getting a piece of something that can help him move on. Elena doesn't get to decide what's best for him."

His brow furrowed, pulling up the skin of his nose a bit as it wove together so tightly. "What's gotten into you? You normally stand behind your sister's choices. Is it Kol?"

My eyes widened. "What? No. Kol has nothing to do with this."

"Elena's worried about you," he said.

I nodded. "Good for her. If Kol wanted to hurt me, he would have by now."

"Klaus values the two of you more than his own family," he pointed out. "Killing the two of you would hit him where it hurts most."

"I don't think he values us _more_ ," I disagreed. "We're just the key to the army he wants to control."

His eyes tightened. "Take this seriously. Are you sure you can trust Kol?"

"Positive." I folded my arms over my chest and raised my eyebrows. "I know Kol better than _any_ of you, and before you ask, _yes_. I know that I can trust him. Why would he help me learn how to use my magic if he was gonna do anything to hurt any of us?"

"I think it'd be best if you two cooled it while this is all going on, at least until we have Klaus out of our lives," he said, and his face began to twist up a bit, almost as if he was going to wince.

I snorted. "Well you know what I think would be best? If everyone would stop telling me how to live _my life_! I get it! Elena's the doppelgänger, but you know what? So am I! I think it's time I get a chance to call the shots for my own life."

Something came over me as the words were spewing out of my lips like a busted fire hydrant. I hadn't thought about any of them. They just came out, though they were truths that probably needed to be said.

Hearing them said out-loud, all I could think about was what Kol had said earlier, about having a few selfish moments to enjoy the things in life I had never gotten to experience before.

Why was I letting Elena decide what was best for me? Why did we have to hide the fact that he was here? She had never been discreet any time Stefan was over, so why did I suddenly have to be? Even though Jeremy didn't like Stefan for a long time once he knew about vampires again, she didn't let that stop them, so why did I have to?

Wasn't it about time I got my own piece of happiness? After spending all of my life being the ugly twin, being the weird looking Gilbert kid, the one who wasn't even a Gilbert at all, it was about time I made choices for myself, choices that _I_ wanted to make.

Without saying another word, I turned away from Alaric and walked over to my dresser, where I began digging through and looking for just the right clothes to wear—both sexy and cute. With Alaric standing right behind me, I obviously couldn't pull them out, but I _did_ pull out the pink lace embroidered tank I planned to wear with the mint skirt and lace flower ruched sleeved cardigan. Usually, my outfit was planned out at least the night before, so with it already in mind, it was going to make things a lot easier.

After a long pause, and seeing the tank top and tights I had thrown onto the bed, he let out a sigh. "What are you doing?"

"Being selfish," I said, both to let him know what I was doing and Kol, who I knew was going to _love_ this.

"Come on, Darcy," he said. "I'm sorry, okay? You're right. Everyone should be able to make their own choices in life, no matter how dangerous they might be."

"Yeah, they should," I agreed. "I'm going to stay at Kol's tonight."

"It's not safe out there," he reminded me. "Rebekah could kill you to get at Elena."

I shook my head and turned away from my dresser to look back at Alaric, who looked more troubled than I expected. Of course he had grown very fond of Elena, Jeremy, and me since he came to town and started seeing Jenna, even more so after she died, but it was painfully obvious just how much he cared about me in the middle of the conversation about the dangerous world around me.

"Rebekah wants her brother dead just like we do," I said, and while most times I would've faltered at the sight of his pain, I wasn't going to let myself, not this time—not when I knew there was no reason to be afraid. "He killed their mother and blamed it on their father all their lives. She's in all of my classes at school. Pretty sure I'd be dead by now if she was gonna kill me."

"Darcy."

I walked over to the computer desk on the far end of the room, which I hadn't taken the time to sit down at for a long time, and pulled the neon blue duffel bag I had stored underneath it out. "If anyone asks where I am, let them know I'll see them at school tomorrow."

This was a side of me that I had never experienced before, which only seemed to help my mind accept the things my heart had told me almost from the beginning. Kol was my soulmate.

Writing me off as a rebellious teenager would've been easy, but we were all older than our age. I wasn't a kid anymore, aside from the fact that I was eighteen years old. Life in Mystic Falls had me much older than eighteen, old enough that I had a good head on my shoulders and enough sense to see right from wrong.

Kol was the first thing in my life that had ever felt _right_ , even if logic told me that he shouldn't. It didn't matter what he had done, or even what he had yet to do—to an extent, as I wasn't gonna just stand by and let him continue his pattern of chaos and murder. All that mattered was who he was now, who he wanted to be.

That was the Kol I was falling in love with. That was the Kol that was my soulmate. Maybe every Kol was my soulmate, as I had never met myself without humanity or any kind of genuine love and affection, but Kol brought out parts of me that even I didn't know were buried in there.

This wasn't me running away from my problems to have a night with Kol. This was me standing up for myself and doing what I wanted to do and what was best for me right now, even if other people around me didn't agree with it.

I barely even noticed as Alaric left the room, closing the door back behind him, but the only reason I did was because strong arms were suddenly wrapped around my waist, pulling me closer so Kol could lean down and grab onto my lips with his own.

It had become effortlessly, positioning our bodies so they fit perfectly together. He even had the exact tilt of his head down, knew how to angle himself just right so that his button nose didn't collide with my slightly bigger one.

All the frustration, all the inner turmoil, melted away with his kiss, as if it was actual fire burning through me. I suddenly couldn't wait to be in his hotel room, alone with total freedom. Moans didn't have to be silenced, accidental yelps of delight covered with skin. We could be completely free to love one another however we wanted.

As he pulled his lips away from mine, a single finger took the place of my lips, and I knew in an instant what that meant. If anyone human were here, whispers would be fine. They wouldn't matter, but if a vampire was downstairs, or anywhere in the house, he would be listening and hear it with ease.

Why was Damon here?

My teeth were tender by the time I made it over to my closet, scrubbing together so hard that I wondered if I might actually grind them down a bit. Who the hell did she think that she was, going off and making decisions like this all on her own?

As I stuffed the clothes inside the bag, remembering to grab the essentials like my toothbrush, makeup, and shoes, Kol disappeared again, but this time, he didn't go into my closet. He went out the window, and I hurried my way across the room to close it back.

Why were we still sneaking around?

I barely got my bag zipped and my warm Ugg boots on, a pair of yoga pants replacing the shorts I had been wearing, before my door came flying open, this time with a much angrier person standing in the doorway.

Damon wasn't alone, though his anger was something only he felt. Elena looked as if she felt remorse, but it was hard to believe that, in the face of what she was trying to do, no matter what anyone said.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Damon snapped.

I shrugged. "You know, I'm getting really sick of people treating me like a child. I'm going wherever the hell I please, Damon, so don't you dare try to stop me."

"When you're being an idiot, you better damn well believe I'm gonna stop you!" he exclaimed, and he stepped closer to me, showing me his barred teeth as the corners of his arctic blue eyes tightened. "You may believe this guy about who he is, but I don't! The timing is too coincidental."

"That's great," I said. "But while you're not believing him, I'm gonna be staying at his place. Why does it matter anyways? He's been here more nights than you guys even realize, so I'm pretty sure if he was gonna kill me, I'd be dead by now."

"You don't see a problem here?" Elena asked, her eyebrows now furrowing. "He has you acting out. Vampires can make you believe whatever they want to, Darcy. That doesn't make it real."

"You don't get to tell me what's real in my life and what isn't!" I exclaimed. "You know what? I'm seriously tired of people telling me that I should be careful, that I shouldn't trust Kol. I knew who he was from the moment I met him! If he was gonna kill me by now, he's had _ample_ opportunity to kill me, turn me, trigger my curse—you name it, he's had the chance. But he hasn't done any of that, so you can all believe what you want, but I know what's real! This, everything that I feel for him, everything he feels for me, it's all real!"

"Darcy, please," Elena whispered, but tears were filling her eyes. It was hard to tell if it was guilt or fear that brought them on, but for once, I didn't care. "We're trying to protect you."

I scoffed. "Well, it's a good thing I can't be compelled then, right?"

Damon's glares darkened in my direction, especially when Elena let out a breath of pain, as if I had just kicked her in the gut. "Darcy, come on. What's gotten into you? You're always right behind everything, and you never do stupid things like this for no reason."

"Yeah, because I agreed with everything thus far, but I don't agree with this," I said. "And I've never had a place to go to feel better. There was no happy place for me, and there is now, so you know what? Call me selfish. Call me stupid. Call me whatever you guys want, but I'm gonna go to my happy place for the night. I'm gonna forget everything and just enjoy my life for a change. Because it's my choice. I'm not gonna let you take Jeremy's away either."

Damon took a deep breath. "So I'm assuming you're the reason Jeremy has vervain in his system then."

Elena's eyes grew wide over at me, her nose curling into a snarl while her mouth hung open in shock, words seeming to be lost to her.

All I could do was smirk over at her as I picked up the duffel bag off my bed. "Hmm. Imagine that. Someone getting to make their own choices in life."

They both looked ready to go another round, but I was done. Everything I wanted to say had been said, and I wasn't in the mood to repeat myself. For the night, Jeremy was safe, as the vervain wouldn't be out of his system until tomorrow sometime at the earliest, so for the night, it was time to take a few selfish moments for myself.

Kol never brought his car when he snuck into my room, as it was too obvious if he did, so usually, he just ran here. Tonight was no different, so the only way to get back to his place, without taking the only vehicle Elena and Jeremy had to get to school, was to, in fact, run.

He was waiting for me on the front porch, wearing a half-smile that almost looked like it was real.

"You sure you wanna go back to my hotel room? There's a whole world out there waiting for us."

I took a deep breath, somehow able to ignore the bitter cold air that displayed my breath. "I'm sure. I need a long night of selfish moments."

Like I hoped, it brought a genuine smirk onto his lips, one full of deviousness mixed with the sweetest desire. His arms curled around my waist, pulling me against his body as his lips inched closer to my face. It wasn't until they were right beside my ear that they stopped.

"I am always happy to provide your selfish escape."

* * *

 **A/N: The lyrics at the beginning are from the song _Body Like a Back Road_ by Sam Hunt. Idk if any of you are country music fans, but if you are, you've probably heard that song at least a hundred times. Haha.**

 **Read, review, and enjoy! Things are about to get . . . different. It's a twist you probably don't see coming, but I hope it's not so out there that you don't want to read anymore. Remember, this is fanfiction, and part of that means we have the power to bend the rules a bit, to make things work for our story that might not otherwise work. What's coming is a bit of a stretch, but it's not completely implausible. There's no one in the series who has disproven the possibility of what's to come, so, ya know. :)**

 **Rambling, sorry. It's probably confusing as well, but I don't wanna spoil it!**


	20. 19: Kidnapped

"Can't fall, can't die.

Tonight we're so alive.

Singing, we own the night!"

* * *

Sometimes, I didn't really think life could get any better than it was at the moment. Sure, not having a raging Original hybrid watching us almost all the time, sending his hybrid goons to spy on us, would've been nice, and it was entirely Stefan's fault that he was, in fact, still in town.

Had Stefan just left the coffins alone . . . .

If being stalked by Klaus was the price I had to pay to have the wonderful man, wearing nothing but jeans as I continued to loosely braid part of my hair into a side ponytail while his arms began snaking around my waist, then I would gladly go the rest of my life being stalked by him.

There was only so long we could keep Kol hidden from him, of course, but over time, it wouldn't really matter. Once Rebekah and Kol had possession of the last dagger, which Klaus had removed from Rebekah's body, it didn't matter what Klaus wanted or thought.

Then I had to figure out how to explain to my family that I knew Kol was an Original the entire time . . . and we had to figure out something to do about Stefan. In all honesty, getting that last coffin open was the best thing we could do because once we knew what was inside, once we knew a way to put down Klaus, the rest didn't matter. He would've helped us all reach our goal, and getting them to see my side of things would be a lot easier.

I didn't expect them to just be completely on board with what I had done. They had every right to be mad at me when it was all over, and I knew they would never really see my side of it all. They didn't have to, as long as they eventually forgave me.

I _had_ lied to all of them. I _had_ done something stupid and opened up the coffins, and more than that, I had pulled the dagger out of Kol's chest. I _had_ hid who he was from them.

I wasn't going to try and play off what I had done. I was going to accept the responsibility of my actions and deal with the consequences of them, but I wasn't going to dare pretend that I wouldn't have done it all over again.

If everything I had done led me to Kol, why would I change that?

His soft lips began leaving a trail down my neck, sending a shiver through my body that made it hard to finish getting ready. "You sure I can't convince you to be selfish some more and stay in with me? We can do more than just have sex all day, though I'd be down for that, too."

I let out a breath of a laugh and wrapped the band around the end of my hair, freeing up my hand so that I could place it against the side of his face, ripping his lips away from my neck so that he could stare at me through the mirror.

The softness on his face, in those beautifully warm eyes, was something that would probably be burned into my memories for the rest of my life. He was just so spectacular, and the more I explored this side of Kol, the more I fell in love.

Every good thing comes to an end, unfortunately. My phone buzzing on the other side of the bathroom counter, buzzing more than just once, abruptly put an end to the tender moment.

He sighed and let go of my waist, stepping away from me so that he could head into the bedroom. "I suppose I'll get ready then."

"Thank you." I reached over and grabbed my phone off the counter, and seeing the lovely face of Bonnie flashed across my screen, I slid my finger across the green button instantly. "Hey there."

"Hey!" she exclaimed, the excitement in her making the word seem brighter than it actually was. "So you remember those dreams I've been having about the coffins? The recurring one of the four coffins?"

My eyebrows furrowed. "Yeah. You mentioned that you felt like it was probably some sort of clue that you could open the sealed one but still hadn't learned how."

She took a moment to clear her throat. "I did last night. Is Elena around you?

"Nope." I put the finishing touches on my makeup, a touch of pink matte lipstick, and rubbed my lips together. "Haven't seen her this morning."

"You live with her." She let out a breath. "You two share a bathroom. You mean you're _not_ getting ready for school right now?"

"I stayed somewhere else last night," I said.

"Ooh. That sounds fun."

My eyes shifted towards the door, at least through the mirror, and to see that Kol still wasn't standing there, I was able to allow my rather devious smirk to come out, without worrying he might insist we stay in some more. "It definitely was."

"It's a school night, young lady," she scolded, though she was laughing too hard to make it believable.

I snorted. "Yeah, well, I had to get away from Elena's bad choices for a night, make some selfish choices of my own."

"What do you mean?" she asked. "What's Elena doing?"

"Trying to do," I corrected, and I took a deep breath of my own. "She wanted Damon to compel Jeremy to leave town for a while, until the whole Klaus thing blows over. I told her that wasn't right, that she shouldn't have the power to take his choices away like that, but she didn't care. She had Damon do it anyways, and you know he'll do whatever she tells him to."

"Are you kidding me?" she asked, her voice rising a whole volume level as the anger built up inside of her. "Why would she even do that? There is no safe place for any of us right now! The safest place he can be is here, where I can protect him!"

"Yeah, I agree," I assured her. "I made sure he keeps vervain in his system, at least until I can get his bracelet back from Klaus." I noticed Kol coming into the bathroom now, leaning against the doorway with a half smirk hanging on his lips. He was fully dressed now, looking rather dapper in the slim fitted jeans and hunter green button-up he wore. Everything he wore clung to parts of him so well that it was hard not to think about what was underneath. "I'm gonna put some vervain in the whiskey underneath his bed when I get home today."

"I can't believe she would do that again, after what happened the first time," she said, and she scoffed. "Why does she get to make that decision?"

"She's trying to protect him," I admitted. "I know it's not right, and I know he's better off _here_ , but in the end, all she wants to do is protect him."

"I guess so," she allowed. "You know, I always forget that when I'm in a bad mood and just want to rant about something, you're the worst person to talk to."

My eyes widened. "What?"

"You're too understanding!" she exclaimed, and she began to laugh, despite the anger I'm sure she still felt. "Sometimes, I just wanna be mad for a bit and _then_ get over it, but you always see both sides."

"Oh." I turned away from the mirror just in time to have Kol's arms snake around my waist, his lips moving down to my neck again. I struggled to not make a sound while he crushed my body into his. "So how are you gonna get it open?"

"I need to find my mom," she said. "I saw this picture in my dream, and it took me a bit of thinking this morning to realize what that picture was—it was a picture of my mom and me before she left town."

"Your . . . oh my gosh." I pushed Kol back away from me a bit, which was easier to do since he had been listening to our conversation. "What do you think that means?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "But I was gonna ask Elena to come with me, if that didn't upset you too much."

"No, I get that completely." The fact that Bonnie wanted to ask Elena over me was actually touching, as she knew that I didn't do well for these kinds of encounters. When Elena and I went to go meet Trudie, to try and learn more about Isobel, I was uncomfortable the entire time. Elena had to actually force me to come because I didn't want to go. I just wanted to call it a dead end and leave it alone. "I appreciate it."

The sound of knocking on the door of the hotel room got us both on high alert, pulling me so far away from the conversation I was having with Bonnie that I didn't even hear what she said back to me.

It wouldn't have been so concerning if Kol didn't look troubled, holding one hand back towards me to keep me in the bathroom while he disappeared off to the door, presumably to open it.

"I gotta go," I whispered, but I didn't wait for her to ask what was going on. She would, would probably find a way to come over and make sure I was okay even, but she didn't know Kol was a vampire. All she knew was that he was my boyfriend, so if she found him living in a hotel room, alone, she was sure to have questions.

Maybe she could know, right? Bonnie wouldn't tell anyone, and it wasn't like she could be compelled by Klaus either.

Then again, Klaus doesn't have to be able to compel someone to find out what he wants to know. He'll use violence if necessary.

There was no way I could've known what I would be stepping out of the bathroom to, but I stepped out just in time to see Kol's hand go through a man's chest that I didn't recognize, ripping his heart out before there was any chance for the man to get away.

His body fell to the ground beside Kol, who didn't stop to check on me. With the hand not holding the heart, he pulled the body into the hotel room, making a longer trail of blood than there already was, and closing the door the second the man's booted feet cleared the range of the door.

The expression on his face was hard to read, very stiff with his jaw locked tight, but it didn't look pleasant, not like the face I had seen all morning. Usually, when we were here, there was nothing but smiles and euphoric bliss, but this wasn't that at all.

"Kol—"

"One of Nik's bloody hybrids," he snapped, but he was across the room before I could blink, dropping the heart into a trash bag on the other end of the room. "I've got a lot to clean up here, darling. You may have to go without me."

My eyebrows rose. "Go without you? You mean drive your car?"

He sighed. "That won't work. You have the sheriff's number, right? Call her for me, explain to her what happened."

The idea of calling Caroline's mom and telling her that my vampire boyfriend had just killed a hybrid, when her daughter didn't actually know he was a vampire, was horrifying, but I didn't see another way around this.

Though I pulled my phone out and began searching through my contacts for Liz's number, my eyebrows furrowed. "Can't you just compel the cleaning lady to ignore the blood?"

"Mystic Falls is full of people on vervain," he said. "Even if they don't know it. I believe your friend Matt is putting it in people's drinks at the Grill. Anyone could be on vervain, and that's not a risk I can take right now."

I nodded and pulled her number up to dial. Kol, while I was on the phone, stepped past me and into the bathroom, where the water in the sink began running almost immediately.

"Darcy?" the normally soothing voice of Sheriff Forbes said on the other end of the line, voice clouded with concern. "Is everything alright?"

"Are you at home?" I asked.

"I just left," she said. "Why?"

I sighed. "Look, I don't know what Caroline has informed you of lately, but . . . I recently got a boyfriend."

"She mentioned him, yes," she said, and she let out a breath of a laugh. "Though I haven't been able to find much information on him. She asked me to do a background check."

My eyes widened. "Yeah . . . you're not gonna find much."

"Uh oh."

I took a deep breath. "I promise I'm gonna tell Caroline that he's a vampire, but please, Sheriff, let me tell her, okay? I don't want her to think that we can't trust him because we can. The only reason I'm telling you this is because we have a bit of an issue."

"An issue?" she asked. "Just tell me what's going on, Darcy. I promise I won't tell Caroline that your boyfriend is a vampire, but I would like to talk to him."

The muscles of my face twisted into a grimace. "I'll talk to him about that. Okay, so, long story short, I stayed with him at his hotel room. I know, Mom ears, don't wanna know, but we're at the Holiday Inn, one of the top floor suites, and one of Klaus' hybrids showed up looking for me. Kol had to kill him, so now there's a dead body and blood all over the floor. Matt has been putting vervain in people's drinks at the Grill, which is great . . . except for when someone needs to dispose of the body of a vampire."

She let out a long sigh. "I'll send some guys over. I'm on my way. You get to school. Have him go ahead and check out of the room. We'll figure out how to cover it up, but he won't be able to come back to that room in particular."

"Not a problem." My eyes drifted up to the bathroom door, where I saw Kol leaning against the doorframe, blood free. "Thank you, Sheriff."

"Just be careful, Darcy, please," she said. "I know that vampires aren't the monsters I once believed, but these days . . . please just make sure you know what you're doing."

"I do," I assured her, and seeing the corners of Kol's lips twitch, as if they might curl into a smirk, annoyed me for once. "I'll be fine, promise."

Getting everything gathered up was easy after that. When your boyfriend is a vampire, it takes him about fifteen seconds to do what might take a human five to ten minutes. The room was empty of all personal items, though the body and blood remained on the floor. The sheriff didn't live far from here, so by the time we got downstairs and checked out, she was there, asking to speak with the manager. Kol made sure to keep his head down, avoid her gaze, and she was confused about that. I, however, understood completely and mouthed, _"Klaus knows him."_ That was all the explanation she needed, as she knew that this wasn't going to make Klaus happy. If he asked who was responsible, she didn't need to know.

But she knew his name.

We slipped out after that, making it to school just in time. I was kind of glad I had an entire class period with just Kol and me, none of my friends or sister, because it gave me a chance to calm down after the crazy morning I had had. I could take a deep breath and just enjoy the fact that everything was taken care of.

Between the first and second class of the day, I took my phone out and sent Damon a text, to let him know what had happened.

 ** _The good news is that Klaus is down another hybrid. The bad news is that he found me at Kol's place, which means they're following us everywhere._**

 ** _Sounds like nothing but good news to me. Maybe now you'll stop going out and sleeping with him while there's a maniac out there threatening your sister's life._**

Kol noticed how pissed off I was by what Damon had said, and he seemed ready to kill, but I reminded him that Damon was my friend. It would really upset me if he did anything to hurt him, so he left it at that.

Elena didn't even look at me during the classes we had together, though Caroline and Bonnie were extra obnoxious about Kol and me. It helped lighten the mood, as Kol definitely preferred thinking about our night last night over the morning we had this morning.

Well, he wasn't the only one.

After school, things took another turn for the worse, life's pesky reminder that nothing good could ever last in my life.

I barely managed to notice Klaus standing outside of the school building before Kol stepped out as well, and I pushed him back in so quickly that he stumbled back a bit, falling into the lockers behind him with his eyes wide.

"D—"

I put my fingers over his mouth and shook my head, allowing my own eyes to widen. "He's outside."

He grabbed onto my face and placed a soft kiss onto my lips, though it was over in a brief second. It made sense for him to hurry and get out of dodge, as far away from this situation as he could get, but that didn't mean I _enjoyed_ the shortness of the kiss.

Still, it was necessary, and with a deep sigh, I turned and went outside to face the music of all that had happened.

Klaus now had two hybrids dead, and he was sure to want some answers. From the darkness in his eyes, it wasn't hard to figure out exactly what it was that he wanted.

"Where were you last night?" he asked, wasting no time as I got close enough to him to reach out and touch him, though I kept him at arm's length.

My eyebrows furrowed. "Um, I may be your living, breathing blood bag, but you don't control my life. Didn't you say you were gonna let us live our lives however we may choose?"

"Yes, well, that was before you decided to share your midnight trysts with someone who killed not one but _two_ of my hybrids," he snapped, and while his words were hostile, his lips were twisted up into a pleasant smile. "I'll need blood to make up for that, and someone's heart."

"That's not gonna happen," I said. "I'll give you blood if it shuts you up, but you're not gonna know who it was."

He shrugged. "Fine. I'll have my hybrids follow you everywhere you go."

"Don't worry," I smirked. "They'll just have their hearts ripped from their chests, and don't you have them following me anyways? How is that new?"

"Just because you're a witch doesn't mean my hybrids can't overpower you," he said, ignoring my questions for the moment as the smile fell off of his face, making room for his lips to curl into a snarl.

I nodded. "You're right, but seeing as how I have a guardian angel who has killed not one but _two_ of your hybrids, pretty sure I'll win."

The corners of his dark eyes tightened, his smile starting to form again. "Fine. Seems I'll have to follow you everywhere you go. I'd like to see your friend rip my heart from my chest." He stood up from the table and gestured with nothing more than his hand for me to follow, and at this point, I had learned that there was only two options when it came to Klaus: do what he said, or someone died.

Even if he didn't kill everyone I loved, he was going to kill _someone_ , and that was enough to get me following behind him obediently.

 ** _He's taking me with him._**

That was all I got to get into a text to send to Kol before Klaus stopped abruptly and turned back towards me, holding his hand out in my direction while his eyes narrowed.

"The phone, please."

I rolled my eyes. "Come on. You've already broken two of these now. Can't you cut my phone a break?"

He didn't say anything, only raised his eyebrows, and with another roll of my eyes, I handed it over to him.

To my extreme dismay, he didn't just throw it on the ground or put it in his pocket. He actually began scrolling through it, probably looking for whatever he could find on the mystery person who had killed two of his hybrids.

At least I had changed Kol's name to something cheesy and generic, something that didn't give away who he was other than _Boo 3_. We had both laughed about the other night as he watched me change it, but with everything happening, there didn't need to be traces of who he was left anywhere, not until we had a way to put Klaus down.

A smirk formed on Klaus' lips as I'm sure he found Kol's contact, though he wouldn't recognize the number as Kol was still in a box as far as he knew. "Why don't we call this Boo and tell him to show himself, hmm?"

My heart stopped inside my chest, the very idea of Kol answering the phone and saying something, anything, terrifying me beyond words. Klaus would recognize his voice, even if it had been over a century and he thought he was in a coffin still. If Kol said anything, it was all over.

The smirk on Klaus' face fell, and my eyes closed. I didn't want to see the anger unfold, as hearing it would be more than enough. Whereas my heart had stopped beating before, it was absolutely pounding in my chest, beating against my ribcage with the force of a hundred vampires.

"Well, aren't you going to say anything? I have your girlfriend, after all."

That knocked the breath right out of me, the surprise and relief pushing out the fear so quickly that I couldn't swallow.

My eyes opened in time to see the darkness that had twisted over Klaus' face, see the way that his eyes narrowed, and I couldn't help the smile that spread onto my lips, though it felt more like a smirk in the face of this small victory.

He had gotten my text first. He knew that it was Klaus.

"Since you're too much of a coward to speak to me, let's see how you respond to _this_. You have until midnight tonight to come to my house and show yourself, or I will drain every last bit of blood from your beloved until her heart no longer has the strength to beat out another drop."

Klaus hung up after saying that, throwing the phone onto the sidewalk and shattering it into a lot of tiny pieces as he turned away from me and continued on, off towards a familiar looking black SUV sitting in the middle of the parking lot.

Uh oh.

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry guys! I've been super busy packing, and my son got the stomach bug! It's been a busy couple days, so I'm posting two more chapters before I leave for vacation in the morning. I was hoping to have more put up before I left, but life happens and all.**

 **The lyrics at the beginning are from the song _We Own the Night_ by Hollywood Undead.**

 **Read, review, and enjoy. :) Have a good few days while I'm away!**


	21. 20: Captive

"Give it to me. I can hold my own.  
I know what it's like to be alone.  
No need to keep me in the dark.  
Already been, I felt that spark.

You don't know how it is  
For someone else to own you,  
Someone else to throw your heart around.  
You need them anyway, I got it.  
Don't make your own delay, you got it."

* * *

The last thing I really remembered was climbing into Klaus' SUV, finding a couple of his hybrids waiting for me in the back. They hadn't really looked thrilled to see me, as I imagined the two hybrids Kol had killed were probably their friends.

It all went black after I said, _"Go ahead. Do your worst."_

Then I was here, wherever that was. My eyes hadn't opened yet, but I remembered the one-sided conversation Klaus had had with Kol, telling him to come to his house to face him.

My head was pounding, and every part of my body felt weak, limp. It was as if I didn't have the physical strength to even exist in the chair Klaus had me in, with what I could only assume was an IV stuck into my arm.

He was draining me of my blood—of course. That lightheaded feeling was _definitely_ familiar now, as I gave blood every chance I got once I turned sixteen. Greyson was a doctor, so I knew firsthand what giving blood could do, how many people it could save.

Even though vampires now raided the Mystic Falls blood bank pretty regularly, it still saved lives to donate. If they didn't have to feed from a person, they didn't run the risk of killing that person.

Somehow, I found the strength to force my eyelids open, though the light shining through the massive window to the left of me closed them right back. They had opened long enough to see Klaus sitting in a chair across from me, not even five feet away. How long had he been sitting there staring at me like that? If I didn't know he had found a sort of fascination with Caroline, I probably would've been a bit creeped out.

"Let me . . . go."

Klaus let out a breath of a laugh. "Why would I do that, love? We're just getting started."

"I . . . already told you I would give you a bag every week," I mumbled, and I attempted to open my eyes again, this time preparing myself for the blinding light waiting for me. It helped a little, though my eyes burned. Still, I wanted to look at him as he drained me dry.

There was a soft smile on his lips, one that almost looked kind, but I knew Klaus well enough to know it wasn't real. So far, I hadn't seen any semblance of kindness in him.

"Unfortunately, your boyfriend has killed two of my hybrids, and werewolves are harder to come by than doppelgänger blood these days," he said. "Until I get a name, or until I see him and speak with him face-to-face, we will continue draining your blood until you are within an inch of your life. I'll feed you my blood, restore your body back to full strength, and we'll start all over again. Unless you give me a name and tell me where I can find him."

My head was getting harder to hold up, so I stopped working so hard. I let it fall down a bit, but the necklace Kol had given me yesterday, the vessel to hold any magic that I didn't use, caught my attention, enough that I began using what little strength I had left to hold up my head again.

It was hard to mask whatever emotions I might be feeling, if my body even had the strength to show them.

If Klaus was going to take my blood, might as well make it useless, right?

All my focus began pouring into the magic within my blood, the magic that had already been pulled from me and put into the bag attached to this IV Klaus had me hooked up to. With enough focus, I was able to pull the magic away from the blood within the bag, only because I could touch the IV that connected to the blood bag itself. The only way to siphon was to have direct contact with the magic I was taking from.

"What are you doing?"

"Draining my blood of the doppelgänger magic." With my attention focused on pulling it from the bag, I didn't have the energy to come up with a lie right now, so what was the point in hiding it?

"Put it back!" he exclaimed, and he stood up now to grab onto my wrists. He was just a moment too late, as I could no longer feel the magic within the bag he was currently draining from me.

With the magic in my system, it was a bit easier to focus, though I was definitely still lightheaded. The magic seemed to work as a restorative power, just like vampire blood, so I was able to smirk at Klaus at the same time I was moving the magic from my system to the vessel.

"It . . . doesn't work that way," I said.

"Stop it!" he demanded, a low growl erupting out of his throat as he slammed my wrists back down, almost pulling the IV out of my arm entirely. The pain was probably amplified by the fact that I was already weak and drained, or maybe it was his strength that did me in; if I didn't know any better, I would've worried that he had just snapped my wrists.

"Fine." I attempted to shift myself in my chair, a poor attempt at getting more comfortable. This chair wasn't made for comfort, unfortunately, and whoever tied me down didn't care about placing me comfortably either. "That bag's a dud. Might as well start over."

His jaw locked so tight that I saw the muscles twitch, his eyes darkening exponentially. "Don't make this any harder on yourself. I might have to kill someone."

"Well, according to you, I'm gonna be dead by midnight, so . . . pretty sure I won't care anymore. Dead people can't care."

"As a witch, you'll be on the Other Side, watching as I slaughter everyone you love, except your sister, who will be put to a similar fate as you right now." He smirked, noticing the way my throat tightened at the reminder of what would happen to me if I died—I wouldn't die and go to heaven like most people. I was supernatural, so I'd end up on the Other Side. "I'd act carefully from now on."

"Maybe I'll find peace," I said. "I haven't killed anyone, so what do I have to atone for?"

"You're probably right," he agreed. "So instead, I'll keep you alive long enough to watch me kill your boyfriend. If you tell me who he is and where I can find him, I'll make it quick and painless."

A woman who I hadn't even noticed before approached me, wearing a pair of baby pink scrubs. She wasn't paying attention to anything, only the IV, so I imagined that Klaus found a nurse he could compel to take the blood for me.

At least he was doing it safely and not poking around inside of my arm until he found the right vein. I had to give him some semblance of thanks for that.

It was harder to stay awake now, when she swapped the bag out into a new one. There was more room for blood to go in, so it was coming out a lot faster now, draining me past words. Keeping my eyes open became too much of a struggle, so I didn't bother. What did I need to see? Klaus' smug face?

Yeah, if I was gonna die right now, that wasn't the last thing I wanted to see before I died. Someone else needed to show up for me to get a glimpse of.

Instead, I tried to focus on Kol inside of my mind, remembering each detail of his attractive face. He wasn't here right now, and I didn't really expect him to be. If this was my time, it was my time, and there wasn't much we could do about that. He didn't have to out himself to his brother for nothing.

All I could see was the smile on his face from the night before, after we had gone back to his room and were getting ready to actually go to sleep. I couldn't remember exactly what I said, but it made him feel so good that he smiled brighter than I had seen yet.

Somehow, I made him happy, and that was the last thing I wanted to see when I died—the happiness that I helped him feel. He would probably spiral if something happened to me, but eventually, he would move on and realize that there were more people in the world who could make him feel the way I did, especially over the years of eternity.

That was what I wanted for him; a happy eternity, where he didn't have to hurt anymore. I wanted him to have someone by his side who loved him, who cared about his thoughts and feelings and would never do anything to hurt him. If that got to be me, that was amazing, but if not, as long as that was what he got, I would be okay. I could find peace with that thought in mind.

The taste of blood on my tongue snapped me out of my bliss. Vampire blood was usually pretty instant, depending on the severity of the injury, and this was no different. One second, I felt as if I was slowly slipping away into oblivion, and the next, it was as if I wasn't being drained at all.

When my eyes snapped back open, Klaus smirked and set himself back down in his seat, which looked a lot more comfortable than mine. Whereas mine was one you might find in a classroom, the hard plastic that kids were forced to sit through an hour long class on, his was a soft leather chair, wide enough for him to stretch his shoulders out and make himself at home.

The room around us was shaping up to be quite the home. When I confronted him the other night, we had met up in this room exactly, but it wasn't as far along as it was even now.

Then again, when you have an army of sired hybrids doing your dirty work for you, things can probably move along pretty quickly.

"I could just kill myself now, you know," I said. "Go ahead and get it over with. That'd be fun. I'd come back as a vampire."

He shrugged. "You're too much of a fighter for that, although I would love to see you come back as a vampire. I could compel you to do anything I wanted and tell me everything I want to know, so you know what? That's not a bad idea."

 _Shit_.

The arrogance plastered on his stupid smug face made it hard to tell if he meant it or not. He would probably never do that, not since he knew it wouldn't hurt people as bad as actually killing me.

"Now, where were we?" he asked while I struggled to read someone who had spent a thousand years making himself impossible to really read. "Oh yes. We were at the part where you tell me who has been killing my hybrids."

"What makes you so sure it isn't Stefan?" I asked, a weak attempt at deflection.

"He hasn't shown his face in this town yet," he said, his eyebrows rising while he leaned back into his comfy chair. "It's been a month now, and my hybrids have found no trace of him. All I've gotten are phone calls. He's hiding in the shadows. My hybrids have been watching you, and they said the man isn't Stefan. I should ask why no one thought to use a bloody camera."

"That's a good question," I agreed. "They should be a bit smarter about it all."

The corners of his eyes tightened, his gaze focusing in on my face specifically. "Who is it?"

"A vampire." I rubbed my still painted lips together and sighed. "A hot vampire at that."

He rolled his eyes. "I assumed I was dealing with a vampire. An older one, as he's able to overpower my hybrids easily."

I allowed my lips to curl into a smirk. "Look at you. Putting pieces together."

There was a sudden shift in the mood of the room, at least for me, at the sight of someone blurring by behind Klaus. With my gaze on him, I had still seen the person moving back behind him, and there were only a handful of people who would be sneaking around the way this blur was.

Surely it wasn't Kol, though.

With Klaus watching me the way that he was, there wasn't much I could do except close my eyes, to attempt to hide the excitement rushing through me. Normally, my heart probably would've fluttered, but it was being drained beyond the normal limits of the human heart. Most people would probably be dead in my situation, but I liked to think that the dormant werewolf in me kept me somewhat safe through all of this.

"Already drained again?" he asked, and maybe the weak and unsteady beats of my heart helped sell the lie. I probably could've given a bit more blood before I needed some of his, but whoever was here to help me needed Klaus to be distracted.

The taste of his blood barely touched my tongue before the loud, unmistakable sound of bones cracking sounded, and Klaus' body fell limp onto mine. It was a sound I hadn't gotten used to, after all of this time, and my body actually cringed back into the seat behind me.

When I opened my eyes, there was no one in front of me, but there was movement behind me, as someone was untying the ropes that bound me. There was a searing sound as well, as if the ropes had been dipped in vervain, but it didn't stop the person helping me.

My heart knew who it was before I even saw him, though, and it was attempting to race while his hands moved over my body, removing any other restraints that had kept me down. He removed the IV last.

When I turned back towards Kol, his teeth sank into his wrist before he held it out towards me, and I took it willingly. Blood didn't necessarily taste good, but I would rather have his blood in my system than Klaus'.

The wound from his teeth healed beneath my lips, and his hand moved to cradle my face, joined by the other as he tilted my head up, looking over every inch of me. Most times, I would've been turned on by this, but there wasn't anything good in his eyes right now. Just fear and anger, the kind of anger that could lead someone to make a bad decision.

"Sorry it took so long, darling," he murmured, and one of his hands fell by his side. "Rebekah wouldn't let me in until she found the last dagger."

I took a deep breath and nodded. "Good. You've got it."

"Are you alright?"

"Much better," I said, but if he wasn't a vampire, I don't know if he would've been able to hear the barely spoken words.

I attempted to smile, but the anger in his eyes was frightening. Any time he talked about how much he hated his brother, about all the horrible things his family had done to him, he would get angry. His eyes would darken, and finding light would be a challenge. This was different; his brother had done something new, uncharted territory as far as Kol was concerned: he had hurt the woman he cared about.

The world around me was a blur, without any kind of preparation, but I could feel Kol's arm holding onto my waist tightly. It made it a little less frightening to be suddenly ripped away from the room around me.

Really, I wouldn't complain about getting away from Klaus anyways. There was no telling what road we were about to head down.

The sun was beginning to set around me when things stopped being a blur around me, and we were standing next to a familiar car. It was hard to say exactly where we were, as there were no houses or buildings in sight—only trees with a single dirt road splitting them. It was probably some more Lockwood property, as they owned pretty much all of town.

Kol reached down and opened the passenger door for me. "Come on, darling. We don't have long. He'll only be down for a bit, and I compelled the hybrids to ignore my existence entirely."

My eyebrows furrowed. "You compelled them? Wouldn't killing them have been easier?"

"Probably, but right now, Nik doesn't need another reason to hunt me down." He let go of the door handle and grabbed onto my waist, and the corners of his eyes tightened, though the usual warmth of his eyes felt colder as pain seemed to take place of whatever was usually burning bright. "Did he hurt you?"

I shook my head. "I'm fine, Kol, but he's gonna be watching me himself. He doesn't trust his hybrids to do it."

"I assumed as much." His lips dropped down to grab onto mine, gently, before he pulled away, and suddenly, the pain made sense. The distinct brown of his eyes with the gold ring around his pupil, which were usually melted together to make a golden warmth that I sometimes dreamed about embracing me, was becoming clear.

His brother had done more than hurt me, threaten me. He was causing problems _now_.

"What are we gonna do?" I whispered.

His eyes closed while he took in a deep breath. "Lay low for a while."

I rubbed my hands over my face, an attempt to hold back the tears that suddenly burned the edge of my eyes. "Why does he have to ruin everything?"

"You read my mind, darling."

There wasn't much time for a real goodbye, so we didn't waste anymore of it. Kol got me into the car and drove off, getting me home much faster than he probably should've gone, especially through Mystic Falls.

A cop actually clocked him going at least seventy through a neighborhood, but when he flipped his lights on and started chasing us, all it took was a call to the sheriff to get him off our tail. The words "Klaus is coming after me," were more than enough for her.

He walked me all the way to the porch before grabbing onto my lips one last time, one of his hands holding along the side of my face like I might float away if he didn't hold me. His lips were desperate against mine, with a determination unlike any other. This was something we hadn't really prepared for, not for it to actually happen anyways. Of course life with Klaus around was always unpredictable, so we knew this was a possibility.

We just never really prepared for it to actually happen.

He had to physically tear himself away from me, and he was gone from beside me when my eyes opened again. The sound of his engine revving up behind me was all the explanation I needed; he was leaving before either of us tried to change our minds.

They had the daggers. All we had to do was hold out until we got that last coffin open, which Bonnie knew how to do now. It wouldn't be for long; everything was going to be fine.

 _Why is this so hard?_

I opened the front door and was surprised enough by the people standing at the bottom of the stairs waiting for me that the tears that wanted to fall dried up, surprise freezing me in place after getting the door closed.

Elena's arms were the first to grab onto me, and I could feel the tears on her face as she buried her face into my shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Darcy. You're right. Everyone should get the right to make their own choices, but you can't be so stupid anymore. Do you realize how horrifying it was to watch you get in Klaus' SUV?"

My arms wrapped around my sister's body, with a bit of strength I had recovered used to hold her against me. "I can imagine."

While I was here in body, my mind and heart were somewhere else entirely.

When could Kol and I be together again? Would this new idea Bonnie had to open the coffin actually even work? Could we even be sure there was something in there that could be used to kill Klaus?

How long could we keep up the charade that he wasn't an Original? Where did things go from here?

There were so many questions racing through my mind, questions that made it hard to even think straight, but there was only one thing I knew for certain.

Being separated from Kol like this wouldn't hurt so bad if he was just some guy I was dating, some guy whose soul connected with mine.

I was in love with him.

* * *

 **A/N: The lyrics at the beginning are from the song _U Don't Know_ by Allison Wonderland.**


	22. 21: Bluffing

"I see you watching me,  
Eyes on your target.  
Mix drinks and smoke rings,  
It's already started.  
It won't be too long before me and you  
Are doing what lovers do.

Clothes on the floor,  
We're exploring our bodies.  
Getting you off is my new favorite hobby.  
Lipstick on your neck brands like a tattoo,  
Cause that just how lovers do."

* * *

The only thing that got me up and through each day without allowing myself to get upset about not being able to see Kol was the chaos going on around me. Bonnie had found her mom, and while it had been a bit touch and go—somehow, Klaus found out where she was going and sent hybrids ahead to threaten Bonnie's mom and adopted son of sorts—everyone came out alive and well. I had tried to keep Stefan in town while Bonnie and Elena went to talk to her mom, but it had been to no avail. It turned out for the better anyways, with all that went down.

Klaus had the coffins now, at least the empty ones, and Rebekah was helping us keep him distracted from them. Bonnie had gotten a lock spell on them, but I didn't get the chance to put another one on it as well. Getting them unlocked would be easy once he knew he had to do it.

Rebekah was trying to keep him from attempting to open them, however, without Klaus becoming suspicious. So far, it had worked out in our favor, but things could only go in our favor for so long.

Kol and I hadn't completely cut off contact either. We still texted pretty frequently, almost like a normal high school couple. He called me each night as well, mostly to make sure I was still alive and breathing. The only way I kept him calm usually was to assure him that I had his vial of blood with me at all times.

The fact that he was so worried about me was more than enough proof; if Kol didn't love me yet, I imagined he would soon. I didn't think he would bother worrying about someone he didn't love.

It was easy to find a million reasons why he wouldn't love me, count up all the flaws on my body and personality, but if Kol had seen past all of that already anyways, I didn't imagine he would take them into account all of the sudden.

On top of all the bad going on, there was a single highlight of the past few days: Elena kissed Damon. It wasn't something that had just happened as an afterthought, or even something he had done. Maybe he initiated it, but she didn't stop him. Instead, she kissed him back, and she was so confused about it all, I didn't imagine she would've told me had I not walked out on the porch and saw it for myself.

My idea of a fun Sunday night was _not_ what I was actually doing; as a matter of fact, I was utterly alone at my house while everyone else went off to do various things to try and get that last coffin open. Elena was at Caroline's, as Caroline was the only one who could keep her from running to where Bonnie and her mom were trying to get the coffin—a place no vampires could go. Jeremy and Alaric were keeping an eye on things at the Grill. Damon met Kol somewhere out of town, somewhere Klaus or his hybrids wouldn't find him, and they were discussing a plan of action, one that would put Elena and me both out of harm's way.

It wasn't just Klaus we were worried about anymore; Stefan had completely lost his mind. In an attempt to force Klaus' hybrids out of town, as they were seriously starting to get in the way of just about everything, he managed to kidnap Elena and me, at a time Klaus _wasn't_ currently standing guard of me. Not only did he kidnap us, he put vampire blood in our systems and drove towards Wickery Bridge at reckless speeds, all while on the phone with Klaus. Klaus broke; he promised to remove his hybrids, but warned Stefan about hurting either of us.

Some of my questions were answered. Klaus didn't want me dead yet, and he didn't want me to become a vampire yet either.

Aside from completely betraying any semblance of trust we might've had left in him, Stefan almost went even further than too far. He almost turned me anyways, even knowing that we had no idea what that would do me. It was easier to make Klaus submit if there was only one doppelgänger left alive.

There was enough going on to distract me from the absence of Kol, to say the least. Tonight was the first time that the pain was able to set in, but that was just because I was utterly alone.

If we weren't hiding from his brother, he would be here, and there was no way to know what we'd be doing. Of course we would've had sex, at least once, but maybe we would've been working on spells or sitting in my room listening to modern music while Kol complained that every form of art had just deteriorated.

That was the parts that I seemed to be thinking about the most, the man who could smile and laugh about some pretty dark stuff. I missed sitting on my bed and talking about how the world around me was dark and horrible, yet I kept a good head on my shoulders. Somehow, I could find the silver lining in just about every situation.

While I did enjoy having sex with Kol, more than I ever really thought I would enjoy sex, it was just an afterthought compared to how much I missed _him_.

All I could see was him half naked, walking across my room with an old grimoire in his hand while he went to change the "abomination" playing through the speakers on my laptop. Most of the songs we listened to were off of my big Spotify playlist, but it was only the modern pop ones that he despised most, the ones that had repeating choruses or generic beats that sounded almost like every other song out there.

When you come from a time where music is through nothing but instruments, it's easy to not appreciate the new styles that had come out.

A knock on the door ripped me away from the daydream in my mind, and though there was a smile lingering on my lips, I didn't sit around pretending that I didn't hear whoever was there. As much as I wanted it to be Kol, I knew that it wasn't. Damon had left earlier in the day to go meet Kol somewhere, so maybe they were done, but I didn't imagine he would've wasted his time knocking on the door, especially if he took a good listen and realized that there was only one heartbeat inside.

Who was behind the door was a mystery, but I knew not answering was pointless. If it was a vampire, they couldn't get in anyways, but they knew someone was here. If it wasn't a vampire, there wasn't too much to worry about anyways.

At the sight of Klaus on the other side, my entire body jolted back again, my eyes growing wide as they took a good look at him. His handsome face was dark, twisted into the image of hell, as the corners of his eyes tightened so much that they were almost just slits.

"Since no one else seems to be around anywhere, maybe you can enlighten me on why I was given empty coffins!"

If I had been given some kind of warning from Rebekah or Kol, maybe it all could've turned out for the better, but all I could really do was try and pretend to be confused, to not understand what he was talking about.

My eyebrows furrowed. "Empty? What are you talking about?"

His eyes opened up a bit more, though the tension was far from gone, but a rather tiny smile twisted his lips. "I almost believed you for a moment. You've even almost got your heart under control, but there was just the tiniest flutter. You're getting better, Darcy. I'm actually impressed."

I smirked. "I've been practicing."

"Now tell me what happened," he demanded, and he stepped up to the very edge of the threshold, a failed attempt at a threat probably. "Has Elijah been the one protecting you?"

"Elijah _did_ call me the doppelgänger breath of fresh air," I agreed, letting out an actual laugh as my eyebrows rose. "Maybe he did."

"Yes, well, you'll have to forgive me for not finding this situation humorous," he snapped. "There are three very angry Originals out there, and I have lost possession of all of the daggers. You can see where this might be a problem for your little town here."

I shook my head. "Nope. Not even remotely."

"Angry," he repeated, his own eyebrows rising as he began studying me more fully. "Originals. The kind you can't just kill with some wimpy wooden crossbow or sunlight. They're a bit more complicated than that."

I snapped my fingers together and widened my smirk. "You know, you should be more worried about that coffin of yours."

"Oh I should?" he asked, and the darkness that clouded over his eyes again would've been scary if he had gotten permission to get inside.

I nodded. "Yeah. It could be opened at any time now."

"What? That's impossible."

My eyes tightened a bit, a single eyebrow raising in his direction. "Is it? Is it really? If it were impossible, you wouldn't be so worried about getting it back."

"They wouldn't leave you here for that," he said. "You're a witch, right? I'm sure they need all hands on deck for that."

The laugh that erupted out of me felt good, a bit cocky, which wasn't really like me. In the face of everything he had done to me recently, however, I felt as if I had earned a bit of cocky. "Why do you think I'm alone? You're following me everywhere I go, so if I go to where the coffin is, you'll be right behind me. They're not stupid."

"I'm calling your bluff," he said, but his locked jaw told me otherwise.

"You do that," I agreed. "But while you're here babysitting me, Bonnie's out there opening that coffin."

Hearing the snarl rip through him made me laugh harder, but that didn't stop him from turning and heading right back down my porch, towards the black SUV he had driven here to begin with. I stood at the door, still inside the threshold that he couldn't pass, and simply curled my fingers at him while he drove away.

He took away precious Kol and Darcy time, on top of all of the _horrible_ things he had done—like kill Jenna or make Stefan turn off his humanity after already forcing him to resort back to his Ripper ways just for entertainment mostly, some old sense of friendship that only Klaus and Rebekah remembered since Stefan was compelled to forget them.

It was short lived arrogance, however, as my phone began to ring in my back pocket. Most days, I left it on vibrate, but it was an important day. There was no telling why someone might need to call me, so I had to be ready for anything.

At the sight of _Boo_ , I was smiling before I even remembered to breathe, and I slid my finger across the smudged screen as quickly as I could. "You have impeccable timing, Kol Mikaelson. Your brother just left."

"I know."

My eyebrows furrowed. "You know?"

"What?" He let out a short laugh. "You think I just disappeared?"

"You never said where you were going," I reminded him.

"I didn't, but it wasn't away," he said. "Well, except when I was meeting with Damon earlier. No one needs to know where I am right now."

"Oh." Just the idea that he was outside somewhere had my heart racing, and I found myself stepping out onto the porch, looking all around for any sign of his car or even him. The streets were empty, though, so I imagined he was hiding out somewhere.

"Darling, will you please be selfish for the night?" he breathed.

My heart jumped inside of my chest, the very idea of what that might imply getting my mind racing back to the various daydreams I had had since I last saw him. "I have school tomorrow."

"Skip," he said. "You've earned it."

"There's too much going on right now," I insisted. "Any moment now, I'll get the call that they got the coffin open."

"Exactly, and we may not have a chance to see one another once this all goes down," he pointed out. "He knows we're not in those coffins now, so it's only a matter of time before the rest unfolds. Please. I have to see you."

The words were harder to hear this time now that they might actually be real. Any time we talked about what might happen in the future, there was always the dim reminder that things may not work out in our favor for a bit. It was unexplored territory that neither of us knew the first thing about getting through. Somehow, we would end up together, but we didn't know how long it would take to get there or even how we might go about getting there.

All we knew was that one day, everything would be okay again.

"I'm not ready to say goodbye to you," I disagreed.

"Then we won't say goodbye."

He had a way of ripping away any semblance of grip I had on sanity and pulling me into the abyss of fun and love and chaos. So far, I hadn't regretted a single moment of insanity, and while everything in me was screaming to tell him no, reminding me that there was too much going on right now, I couldn't actually get the two letter word out.

Instead, my legs were carrying me up the stairs, moving at a speed that was unlike me, especially in thick, fuzzy socks on wood floors. It was dangerous and completely reckless, but I didn't care.

"I'll take those rushed footsteps as a yes." The line beeped, and when I glanced at my phone, I saw that he had hung up.

I tossed my phone onto the bed and grabbed my duffel bag, but I barely got a few pairs of clean underwear in there before I was suddenly not alone. Standing in my doorway, with the golden brown of his eyes mixed together again in the warm beauty that I didn't imagine I would take for granted again, was Kol Mikaelson.

I didn't realize there were tears in my eyes until they actually obscured my vision, but I wiped them away, hoping he wouldn't see them.

His lips were on mine in an instant, but it was so brief. When he pulled away, a massive smile came out, brightening my room more than I could even begin to fully wrap my head around.

"Let's get you some clothes, although you won't be wearing them much."

I bit down on my bottom lip, but that didn't stop my own grin from coming out. "Mmm. That sounds like a hell of a time."

"Oh, it will be."

I walked over to my closet and grabbed a couple of winter dresses, a pair of jeans, and a couple of t-shirts. I didn't actually expect to be gone that long, but I had no idea what we were actually gonna do while we were gone, so I was preparing for anything.

Kol had figured out where all of my clothes went, after raiding my panty drawer and insisting that I wear this one lace pair that I honestly didn't even remember I had. Up until this point, I hadn't actually put them on, as they were cheeky and much showier than I was used to, but they were in the bag, if nothing else.

He packed up a few different sets of pajamas, and with the clothes in my hand, closing the bag proved almost impossible. If Kol hadn't been there, I don't know if I would've been able to close it myself.

While the two of us hurried down the stairs, towards the door and wherever he planned to take me, I pulled up a text to send to Elena. If I thought too much about what I was doing, I imagined that I would back out of it, so I just typed what made sense, what she needed to know.

 ** _I know this is the worst timing ever, and I'm so sorry to abandon you guys like this, but Klaus showed up again, and I'm just gonna get outta town for a couple days, try and recuperate after everything that's happened. I love you. Be safe. Make sure to call me if anything happens and I need to come home, okay?_**

* * *

 **A/N: Back from vacation! Hope you guys had a good few days! I was gonna come back and post more than one chapter, but to be honest, I'm exhausted. I'm just gonna post this one and crash.**

 **The lyrics at the beginning are from the song _Like Lovers Do_ by Hey Violet.**

 **Flicker only has nine more chapters and an epilogue before it's over. I hope you guys enjoy where this story is headed. :)**

 **As always, read, review, and most importantly, enjoy. :)**


	23. 22: Influence

"In her hands is my heart . . .

She's the beast in my bones.

She gets everything she wants when she gets me alone,

Like it's nothing.

She got two little horns,

And they get me a little bit."

* * *

"Shit, Kol, I forgot my makeup!"

That was a silly thing to worry about, in retrospect, but I had never been completely naked around Kol. Even when he accidentally fell asleep in my bed that one night, and we woke up to the sound of Elena moving around outside of my door, I had fallen asleep with it on. It was a bit messed up, but it was still there.

I couldn't just leave it on for however long we were staying holed up in his new hotel room, just outside of Mystic Falls. It was far enough away that Klaus wouldn't even suspect a strange car he had never seen before, and no one in Mystic Falls would find it either.

He rolled his eyes as I took a large chug of the tequila he had in here. There were various bottles of alcohol inside of mini fridge, only the best quality of course, but I picked tequila. It usually got me the warmest of all of the alcohol types, so I imagined keeping clothes on was gonna be nearly impossible.

I was already stripped down to my underwear, so there wasn't much more I could take off.

"You act as if you need such things."

I snorted. "Right. You've never seen me without it."

His eyebrows furrowed. "Darling, the things that separate you from the other doppelgängers make you far more exquisite to me, but I _have_ met doppelgängers, before makeup was ever even invented. I know what your face will look like without it, and believe me. You don't need it."

"I could have really bad skin, and makeup is the only way I have to hide it," I pointed out. "What then?"

"You don't because I would be able to see it, even with makeup covering it." He smirked. "Vampire eyes, remember?"

"Damn it." I took another chug of tequila, this time allowing my face to twist into a grimace. "Why am I not making margaritas with this?"

"I offered to make you one," he reminded me. "These past few days have been so horrible for you, however, that you just couldn't wait that long."

Normally, when I laughed, it was just that—a breathy laugh, usually not massive hysterics, but _certainly_ not high-pitched giggles.

Maybe it was the tequila, or maybe it was the freedom we had again, even if for just a night or two, but I fucking giggled.

Until the song changed, to rather hot party song that I _really_ enjoyed dancing to—Caroline asked how I possibly danced to a rock song, but I'm talented—I let the conversation die. I kept my gaze on Kol as he continued drinking the blood from the blood bag he also had his fridge stocked with, though he liked to put it in a glass.

While my hips moved along to the party beat, an idea that on most occasions wouldn't have even occurred to me took over my brain, and the next thing I knew, the carefree, half-drunk personality that was coming out of me had me up on the dresser in the hotel room, singing along and swinging my hips. I barely even noticed how cold the wood underneath my feet actually was, but I _did_ notice because the rest of my body was warm with the taste of liquor.

"I set my friends on fire," I sang, after taking another gulp of tequila. "And now they're all lit up. Welcome to my empire, where everybody's fucked up!"

He had been watching me the entire time, with something more than just lust burning in his eyes. Obviously watching your girlfriend grind her hips while half-naked is gonna make anyone horny, but there was more to it than that, something much more real—maybe even the same thing I had realized that I felt for him, too.

It was hard to say for sure, as the alcohol was definitely getting to me, but it kinda looked like love.

"Remember that you're still breakable, darling," he said before finishing off the blood in his cup, standing up so that he could set it on the dresser opposite side of where I was still standing.

I nodded. "Yep, still breakable. You can't turn me either."

"You assume that I haven't found a way," he said.

My eyebrows rose. "Have you?"

"Quite a few," he said, and to my delight, he walked over to stand in front of me, his eyes glowing gain as he stood his body mere inches from mine. "I compelled Tyler to turn until he was no longer sired to Klaus, to see if it would work. If that works out, all I have to do is find a way to temporarily incapacitate my brother and get his blood to turn you. Elena intends to remain human, so you can always get a bit of her blood to transition. Just in case, she's given me what I would need to turn you."

My eyebrows furrowed. "You've really thought this through, haven't you?"

A small smile grew onto his lips, and he nodded a bit, looking up at me with that look of love instead of just lust. "Would you like to drink some more, or would you actually like to remember this night?"

Another giggle slipped out of me, but I didn't let myself get angry this time. Instead, I slid down off of the dresser and right into Kol's arms. His arms wrapped tightly around my body, all but crushing me into him, and despite the awkward angle of it, his lips found mine in an instant.

With my fingers weaving themselves into his hair, I ever so delicately flicked my tongue across the line between where his lips met, and he allowed them to part that very second. Sliding my tongue in between his lips, I hooked my tongue around his and pulled it towards me, into my mouth so I could suck on it. Neither of us were necessarily big on tongue play, but as much as he loved it when I sucked on other parts of his body, like his fingers or ear lobe, I imagined he would like this as well.

I arched my back to get closer to him, pulling my mouth away from his so that I could press my wrist against his lips instead. "Isn't it better warm? Straight from the vein?"

There was something that resembled a growl building up in his chest as his lips curled back away from his teeth. "You have far too much faith in me."

"You didn't kill me the other day," I reminded him. "Or the first day you met me."

He moved my wrist away from his mouth and tucked some hair out of the way of my neck, exposing the very spot that Kol mentioned was the absolute best to feed from. It was the first time he had to actually sink his teeth into my skin, and though it hurt pretty bad, it was easy to ignore as the blood was drained from my body, into his mouth.

I imagined that Elena would have some choice words about willingly feeding him my blood, but it didn't really matter what she thought about it all. If she didn't want to be fed from, that was fine; something in me _did_.

He ripped himself away from my neck after just a short bit, allowing his tongue to rub along the small spot where blood had gotten outside of his mouth. His eyes were like fire as he looked at me, the grip he had on me burning me as much as his eyes did.

"Oh how I have tainted you, Darcy Gilbert." He sucked in a breath of air and rubbed his tongue across the still open wound on my neck. "I can taste the alcohol in your blood."

"Oops." I bit down on my bottom lip to distract him, and it certainly did—until my hand slipped down his pants that is, grabbing onto his dick that didn't need any sort of foreplay to be ready to go. After that, all he could focus on was my hands wrapped around him, my nails ever so delicately scraping against the skin.

His teeth snapped together, a rough hiss pushing through them while his feet took a few steps back, leading us both towards the bed behind him. "You are so hot when you demand what you want."

"So give me what I want," I purred onto his lips.

That was something I didn't think he would ever say no to, especially when we wanted the exact same thing.

* * *

 **A/N: The lyrics at the beginning are from the song _Horns_ by Bryce Fox. It was actually the song I listened to that inspired this whole story, oddly enough. It's my personal Bryce Fox favorite. :) Also, the song she dances to is the song _Empire_ by Escape the Fate, the song that inspired this chapter. Haha  
**

 **Let me know what you guys think! Big things are coming. :)**


	24. 23: The Right Thing

"And I'd give up forever to touch you  
Cause I know that you feel me somehow.  
You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be,  
And I don't want to go home right now.

And all I can taste is this moment.  
And all I can breathe is your life.  
And sooner or later it's over.  
I just don't wanna miss you tonight.

And I don't want the world to see me  
Cause I don't think that they'd understand.  
When everything's meant to be broken,  
I just want you to know who I am."

* * *

Getting away for another selfish retreat, this time a two day retreat, was the best thing I could've done for myself. As far as everyone else, probably not, and the guilt did catch up to me when Kol dropped me back off at home.

When we weren't, you know, being super intimate, Kol was helping me master spells. He was letting me siphon the magic from his blood and store it into the necklace he got me, so there was enough to use when I needed it. He taught me the pain infliction spell, allowing me to practice on him so that I could make sure I had it down. It took me forever to actually make myself do it because I didn't wanna hurt him.

He also taught me to use magic to snap his neck, in case Klaus ever tried to hurt me. There were a few other spells, like the basic fire spell, that we practiced, but he really stressed the two that I could use against Klaus if I needed to, to make sure he didn't hurt me again.

After using the spell to snap his neck twice, we realized I had it down. From there, we were able to just enjoy our time together, without worrying if Klaus was gonna kill me the next day. There was a peace of mind about it all that I hadn't felt in a long time, maybe even ever. For once in my life, I could take care of myself. I didn't need anyone else to protect me, not from Klaus or anyone else. It felt good, so good that I didn't let the guilt get to me too much, even when Damon came over and told me to stop being such an idiot. I just smiled and said, "I can protect myself now, Damon. He showed me how to snap Klaus' neck with magic and inflict pain. Would like me to demonstrate, or will you take my word for it?"

He left it alone, but no one was really happy with my abrupt departure. I got that, but they didn't get my side of it, nor did they really care to get it. Bonnie was the most chill about it, even after she found out that Kol was a vampire. She saw things like I did; if Kol wanted to hurt any of us, he wouldn't have saved Jeremy, and Elena and I would _definitely_ not still be alive.

The best memory that I got to carry with me after those two magical days was after we had gone out for dinner. Everything in me wanted to have sex with Kol, except for the fact that I was so tired. We hadn't gone anywhere super fancy. I actually wore a baggy t-shirt and jeans, which of course he said I pulled off better than anyone in the world, and it was the freest I had ever felt. To not care about how I looked, even standing next to someone who looked damn good effortlessly, was a feeling I didn't imagine anyone else could make me feel.

So I didn't feel so left out without making up my face, he didn't shave his, and he actually got a bit of stubble, which only looked damn good, of course. He made the "just rolled out of bed" look better than anyone else could.

When we got back to his hotel room, we listened to music, and he just kinda held me while I fell asleep in his arms. Before I could drift too far off, the song changed, and Kol asked me to dance with him.

We had never danced before, with all the time we spent laying around listening to music, so I couldn't pass the opportunity up, especially when I realized what the song was. The words were everything I had yet to say to him, the way my heart began to feel in such a short time, in the grand scheme of forever.

The way he held me in his arms felt like more than just a simple sway to the music we were dancing to; it felt like he was trying to tell me something without actually saying the words out-loud.

 **" _You ask me how I feel, and it's really no big deal. You're only everything to me."_**

For someone who had spent a century in a coffin, he knew how to dance without dancing over the top. It was a gentle sway, with a few spins added in throughout the song. It was beautiful. It was vulnerable, but it just made me more certain that I loved him.

As I laid across my bed, holding tight to the shirt I was currently unpacking from my duffel bag, all I could think about was the moment I stole this shirt, and it was almost like I was back there.

We were packing up my clothes to go, but while I did that, Kol decided to clean up the room a bit. The button-up he had worn to pick me up in was still laying on the floor, in the small walkway between the bed and the wall, and I was standing beside it. Instead of being normal and handing it to him, I decided to put it on.

 _Of course he noticed it almost immediately. "What are you doing with that?"_

" _I need it. It's cold outside."_

 _He frowned. "That's one of my favorite shirts I've found since the dagger was removed."_

" _But I need it," I said, and I poked out my bottom lip, an attempt to look more cute and pathetic._

 _His hands grabbed onto my hips, and in one fluent motion, I was sitting on the dresser, almost eye level with him at this point with saliva pooling up in my mouth. It wasn't raging desire in his eyes turning me on this way, but it was something else—the same thing that had been there the previous two nights._

" _You can have whatever you want, love."_

Everything I felt any time Kol was around, any time I thought about him, was hard to believe. These feelings were intense. Elena had warned me about getting too attached, as this was Mystic Falls, but it wasn't like I could just stand back up—I had fallen hard and way too fast, but it was real.

That connection, the very feeling that had me pulling the dagger out of his chest . . . that was the connection of a soulmate, that feeling of being complete and whole for the first time in your life.

You never realize how empty you are until you experience being whole, only to be left empty again.

When Kol dropped me off, after getting a call from Rebekah to come home and join the rest of their family, the last thing he said to me was, "I swear to you, Darcy Gilbert. We will find a way."

What way was there? The only time we were able to be together anymore was when we left town, and Klaus would never let me just leave town without following me. The only reason we got away the first time was because he feared the coffin was being opened, which it apparently was.

All I could tell myself was that we would, in fact, find a way.

* * *

Kol knew that his siblings had heard him arrive. He knew that they were probably waiting for him to come inside, maybe even eager to find out what he had been up to the month they were all free from the coffins.

He didn't know what they might've told Klaus, who they said let them out, but every part of him hoped that they didn't tell him the truth. Darcy could protect herself now. Kol made sure of that, but Klaus was always a step ahead. There was no way to say for sure if she would actually be able to protect herself. All he could do was hope that their mother put some sort of leash on him, until he could ensure she was safe from his monstrous ways.

How could he do that, though? The idea of turning Darcy with his own blood was far too appealing to him, although he'd give it up in an instant if he had to do so. As long as he got to turn her, that was all that really and truly mattered to him.

In such a short time, he had fallen in love with her in such a profound way, more than he imagined most people could fall in love in that time. They had spent so much time together, though, getting to know one another more thoroughly than people usually did these days.

The two days he spent with her, before Rebekah called and gave him the good and bad news, were by far the most amazing he had ever had, even compared to days he had spent with her. There was so much more than just the sex and the passion. He wondered if there was love in her eyes, too, though he imagined it was probably just the reflection out of his own.

He still couldn't decide if he was happy to be reunited with his family or upset, though hearing that his mother was alive had surprised him in a pleasant way. Still, none of it made tearing himself away from Darcy worth it. Any semblance of family that had once existed was gone, after the many betrayals over the years.

" _She wants us to be a family again, Kol. She wants us to be whole."_

How often had Kol wished for that very thing, to be a part of his family again? For the longest time, it was what he wanted more than anything, but that was ruined every time a dagger was shoved through his chest, with the help of the siblings around him. Each time, he let himself believe it would be different, only to be daggered again in the end.

This time was different; he wasn't going to be so naive as to believe they could be family again, though there wasn't anything any of them could do to him anymore. Rebekah was the only other one to have a dagger, and he had three of them. She was so angry with Klaus for all that he had done to her, all that he had done to the family, Kol actually believed she wouldn't use it against him.

Would it be his downfall again?

The only thing that got Kol out of his car was the idea of what attempting to be family again would mean. If their mother was really back and really wanting to make her family whole, she had control over Klaus that was unmatched. She must've been what was inside of the coffin, and that was definitely the thing that could bring down Klaus.

It wasn't the way the people in Mystic Falls wanted, but Kol could probably find entertainment in it, especially if it meant they all had to leave Darcy alone.

When Kol stepped through the front doors of the finished mansion that he had only been inside of once, to rescue Darcy from Klaus when he had attempted to drain her dry of blood, he could actually take the time to enjoy the luxury around him. Staying in hotel rooms had its perks, mainly a place he could get away with Darcy, but living in a nice home again was appealing to Kol.

The rounded grand entrance room, decorated with elaborately designed tiles and large pillars that stretched up to the second floor along the edge of the room, had an elegance that was fitting of Klaus. He had always been more into the finer things life had to offer, and at one point, Kol actually cared about those things as well.

Everything he had once lived for, everything he had once believed, didn't matter, not anymore, and that both thrilled and terrified him. The idea that someone could mean so much to him was something he had always wanted but never dared to think about, but it was horrifying to realize there was something he cared about more than himself that was so weak and vulnerable.

They were at an impasse, it seemed; love was both strength and weakness, and Kol struggled to wrap his mind around that.

There was arguing further back into the house, ripping Kol away from his surroundings. It sounded as if it was coming from the very room that Kol had rescued Darcy from a few days prior, so that was the direction Kol headed, as quickly as he could get there.

Only Finn noticed as he stepped in the doorway, his eyes moving away from Elijah to glance up at the youngest Mikaelson brother. "Kol is the only one of you lot who ever even bothered to remove the dagger from my chest!"

"For whatever reason I'm defending this lot, it wasn't exactly easy to do," Kol spoke up, though the very defense made him roll his eyes. "Nik was always around with another dagger to shove into the poor unsuspecting sibling who dared defy him. We don't have to worry about that anymore, though."

Kol allowed himself to look away from Finn and over towards his brother, the one he had last seen as he snapped his neck to break out the woman he loved. Klaus still had no idea Kol had been the one to break his neck, and Kol wanted to keep it that way for now, even if Klaus no longer had the power of the daggers over him.

Still, at the sight of his youngest brother, Klaus' nostrils flared, his eyes darkening even more than they already were. The bickering Kol had heard was probably everyone yelling different things at their brother who more than deserved it, even if he didn't believe that he did. He thought himself superior to them all, just because he was a hybrid.

Klaus' anger only made Kol smirk, though it was a much more twisted version of the smirk that he liked to give Darcy, to make her heart race inside of her chest. "Hello, Nik. Did you miss me? I assume not, since I was in a box for over a century."

"At least it was just one," Finn scoffed.

"Who let you three out?" Klaus demanded, and his eyes tightened a bit more. "They won't tell me, so I'll ask you one time."

"What are you going to do, Nik? Dagger me? I'd like to see you try." Kol walked over to the fire place, which was conveniently set up with all the essentials a fireplace needed. The Original hybrid didn't need the fireplace to keep warm, but Klaus had always enjoyed the aesthetics of it all.

Kol reached down and picked up the fire iron, and the possibilities were endless. A part of him wanted to throw it at Klaus, though he imagined his brother would catch it before it could actually do any damage.

"I would put that down if I were you," Klaus warned, when he noticed Kol looking at the iron intently.

Instead, Kol stuck it into the fire. "You may as well prepare yourself. You deserve this and so much more."

There was a bit of rustling on the other side of the room, and Kol only glanced over to see what the commotion was. Finn had grabbed onto Klaus' arms and held him back, awaiting the very iron that Kol was heating up.

Rebekah walked over in front of their brother, while Kol continued burning the iron, and patted his cheek. "This will only hurt a lot, but I can promise you it won't begin to compare to the pain you've inflicted on all of us over the centuries."

Kol was, in an instant, in front of his brother, shoving the red hot fire iron through his stomach before Klaus could even flinch. Kol liked to think that he wasn't enjoying this kind of violence as much as he used to, but that would've been a lie. Maybe it had something to do with _who_ he was harming like this, but he wasn't so sure.

"That is for all the time I lost because of you."

Kol ripped the fire iron back out of his brother and threw it across the room, back where it had once been neatly placed. He didn't care that it lay scattered on the floor; all he cared about was distracting his siblings from what he had said.

They might've misunderstood, and that was what Kol hoped for. He didn't want any of them to know right now, though Rebekah _did_ know he fancied Darcy. She didn't know the true extent of it, and he had kept it that way on purpose.

Kol liked to think that he hated his brother for all the years of daggering him and abusing the power that he had over all of them, but right now, the only thing he could find himself mad about was that he had hurt Darcy, that he was threatening her very existence. He was angry because he couldn't just turn her with Klaus' blood and the blood of Elena simply because they couldn't trust her to be sired to Klaus. There was no way to know _what_ he might have Darcy do.

All Kol wanted to do was continue exploring the idea of forever with her, and this whole "being a family" thing was getting in the way. He didn't care much for that idea anymore; it had been lost over the centuries of betrayal.

Kol took another good look around the room, finding each eye on him, and while he might've smirked and made some joke about how handsome he was in any other situation, he was too pissed off to be arrogant.

"Okay, where is our mother?"

"She has decided to throw a ball this weekend," Elijah said. "To celebrate this momentous occasion. This is the first time since she turned us that we have been together again as a family, and I, for one, would like to celebrate the idea of it."

"Yes, but where is she right now?" Kol asked.

"There were a few guests she wanted to invite personally," Elijah said, but the irritation in his brother's eyes was confusing to him, to everyone who noticed. "She mentioned some of our favorite locals specifically. What's wrong, Kol?"

Darcy was the only person in the world who had made Kol feel as if he didn't know how to breathe, but hearing that his mother wanted to invite her to the ball personally didn't settle well with Kol. For that moment, he _didn't_ know how to breathe.

Some of the locals . . . such as the doppelgänger twins?

"I have to go." Kol took a step back away from his family, his eyebrows furrowing while his mind began trying to piece together what his mother might want to invite Elena and Darcy for specifically.

Rebekah scoffed. "Kol, you can't just leave. Mother will be back soon."

"No, Rebekah, I have to go," Kol said again, and he looked into her eyes, hoping by some chance she understood what he was trying to say. If he had to say it out-loud, there was a violent road ahead, probably lots of yelling and threats.

Right now, he just had to know that Darcy was safe.

Rebekah shook her head. "It will be fine. Just wait for Mother."

He knew there was no sense in arguing with Rebekah. She would never think poorly of their mother, but Kol wasn't stupid. He had been betrayed by family far too much to trust any of them, even their mother.

What had she seen while on the Other Side? Everything they had done? There was no way she was able to watch all of that and just be perfectly okay with it all when she came back suddenly.

Was she hunting down Darcy? What did she need from the woman he loved?

* * *

It wasn't like me to sulk, and the aftermath was a big reason why I almost didn't go with Kol the past couple days. Looking at it now, I would've regretted _not_ going more than I hated dealing with the pain of being away from him again for an unknown amount of time, but that didn't mean I was gonna sulk about it any less.

It had been magical, in a way that I didn't get to experience. I finally did, and the idea of becoming a vampire, living out my eternity with Kol, was euphoric. It was extremely unlikely as well, as we hadn't known each other long enough to possibly know if we could last an eternity, but it was a nice thought anyways.

Elena refused to think of the rest of her life with Stefan, as she knew it didn't have a happy ending—how could it if she had no plans to be a vampire?—but it was different for me. I _did_ want to become a vampire.

This kind of sulking that I was doing was different; it left a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach that I couldn't shake, no matter how hard I tried. Still, I tried to pretend that it wasn't there as I made my way downstairs, with the intentions of grabbing a drink.

The sound of the doorbell ringing changed that, however, and if I didn't know that the Originals were all at Klaus' place working on their fucked up family dynamic with their newly risen mother, I probably would've tried to pretend that I wasn't there. Kol _had_ told me where he was going, though, so I wasn't so afraid.

The woman standing on my front porch was completely unfamiliar, with shoulder length blonde curls that seemed to have aged with time, almost an ashy blonde that wasn't a common color these days. She was dressed extremely well, in a dress that was both elegant and casual, with an almost pleasant smile on her face.

Something about it was off, though, enough that I was a bit leery as I just stared, without uttering a single word.

"May I come in?" she asked, her thick accent sounding as if she was from a different time.

Was this their mother?

"I don't know," I said, and my eyebrows furrowed. "Can you get in without me inviting you in?"

Her smile widened a bit, and she stuck a single hand through the threshold, offering it towards me to shake while also answering my question—one of them anyways.

When I took her hand, I got all the confirmation I needed. There was so much magic in just a simple touch, resting just beneath her palm and extending out throughout all of her body. It was almost as if it was begging to be stolen from her, but I couldn't steal her magic; this was Kol's mom.

Suddenly, remembering who she was—not just the witch who created vampires, but the mother of my first real boyfriend—a lump began forming in my throat, making it hard to swallow.

"You can come on in," I finally said, letting go of her hand so I could turn and head back inside. It was hard to focus my thoughts, but right now, I decided it would be best to focus on the most important thing right now: their mother was here, and I didn't imagine she left their little family pow-wow just to see me. "Would you like me to make you some tea?"

"Thank you, but no," she declined, and she cleared her throat. "I won't be here long. My children are all waiting for me to get back home, but I knew this had to be done before Kol made his way back home."

My eyebrows furrowed. "Knew what had to be done? I, uh, sorry to be rude, but why are you here?"

She pressed her lips together, her thin eyebrows rising as she held her hand out towards me, which contained a small off-white envelope, with my name written across the front in beautiful calligraphy.

"I wanted to personally invite you to the ball I am having this weekend," she said, and her smile grew warm now, which only made my heart thump inside my chest. "It will be in celebration of my family being reunited after so many years."

"Thank you." I took the invitation from her hands, though my eyebrows never unwove. It was hard to believe what she was saying; she came all this way to personally hand me an invitation to her ball? Why wouldn't Kol let her do that? Surely he'd want me to come, right?

The smile fell from her face, so I imagined she noticed my hesitation. "Your magic is not of nature."

"I know it's not common," I said, and I did my best to clear my throat. "But it's of nature, even if it's not normally how nature does things."

"Regardless, it has put you in a dangerous position that leaves me no other choice," she said.

"What do you mean?" I asked, but it was suddenly hard to breathe. It wasn't like she was using a spell to take my breath away. Her words did that well enough. "Are you here to kill me?"

"You are going to die," she said, which I admittedly didn't expect to hear, "but if I kill you now, my son will kill me before I have a chance to make my family whole."

"I thought you were the thing that could kill Klaus."

"I spent a thousand years on the Other Side, hating my son for what he had done, watching as my children destroyed the world because of what I had done," she said. "I learned to love them, however, and learned to forgive. All I want now is for my family to be whole, which will mean that Niklaus will leave you and your friends alone."

"Oh." Something about that didn't settle well with me, but it was probably the nausea I was already feeling mixed with the fear of what she had so bluntly said. She wasn't the first person to tell me that she was going to kill me, but she was the first that I was genuinely afraid of. "Well, I guess that's all that matters."

"I need you to go to the ball and break up with my son."

Apparently being on the Other Side for all of these years didn't teach her how to approach conversations properly, as she was great at getting right to the punch line, no matter how unsettling and abruptly she had to get there.

"What?"

She sighed. "I've watched Kol terrorize the world. I've watched him murder thousands for nothing more than entertainment, and I've seen what the absence of his family can do to him. Right now, all he needs is his family."

"He hasn't killed anyone since I took the dagger out," I disagreed.

Her eyebrows furrowed. "Is that what you think?"

The thought hadn't actually occurred to me, but I had assumed that he hadn't. I never asked, but he always talked about how he didn't have the urge to kill like he used to, about how he didn't think about blood almost constantly anymore. It was just logical to assume that no one had died after he had been brought back.

"He . . . has he?" I whispered.

"My son is not who you think he is," she said, and my stomach dropped all the way to my toes. "This is all a game to him, unfortunately. He isn't capable of true feelings, not right now. Maybe in a century or so . . . but you'll be long gone by then."

This was too much thrown on me at once, and I absolutely couldn't handle or process any of it. Kol had killed people? He had been playing with me the entire time? How could I believe that in the face of everything that had happened? Someone capable of doing all the incredible things he had done for me, all the things we had done together, there was no way it was just a game to him.

I shook my head. "N-No. I don't believe you."

"Believe me or not, I've been watching him closely," she said, and the tears began falling before I even realized they existed inside of my eyes. "This isn't love. Kol wouldn't know the first thing about it."

I had to swallow, hard, to even get where I could attempt to get words out, but my gaze set in hers, holding it as sternly as I could possibly manage. "Please leave."

Her expression lost all pleasantness that had remained, even if I hadn't believed any of it, but she didn't bother putting up the façade now. Darkness covered her expression in an all too familiar way.

"You can either break up with my son, and your death will not destroy him when it comes for you, or you can keep him selfishly, for as long as you live, and when you die—and you will die—you will destroy everything he could be."

I was able to get a grip on myself after hearing that, despite how horrible the words were. "How can I do that if this isn't love?"

She ignored me completely as she pressed her lips together. "It's your choice. Set him free or destroy him."

Though I stood my ground, everything inside of me that had been whole and beyond happy just five minutes ago was crumbling, the invitation still in my hand as she turned and headed for the door. She didn't say anything more, didn't even look back. She just left with the thought that I held power to destroy him or set him free.

The moment she stepped out of the door and it closed back behind her, I lost the ability to stand on my own. My hands pressed against the cold wood beneath me, and I began heaving, as if I was trying to vomit with nothing inside of me. Those were the sobs attempting to force their way out of me, with the tears following almost as violently.

It didn't actually help the nauseous feeling I already had inside me, and I knew it was only a matter of moments before everything inside of me came erupting out of me.

The kitchen was the closest to me, so despite the tears streaming down my face, despite every piece of me crumbling away, I did a painful and quick crawl into the kitchen. The wood beneath my hands stung as I pounded against it, both my knees and my palms, but a little pain was better than attempting to clean up vomit later.

The trashcan was within reach just in time. The muscles of my stomach began contracting with a force of someone going into labor, or at least that was how it felt at the time. I actually had no idea how horrendous labor might actually feel, but this felt worse than even my worst cramps. It felt as if my stomach was trying to purge itself of the lunch Kol and I had gotten before he dropped me off just a couple hours ago, if that.

There was my lunch, not even remotely digested at the bottom of the trashcan.

Amidst my violet vomiting, I didn't hear the front door open. All I heard was Elena calling out my name, her sneakered footsteps running towards me as quickly as she could get to me.

"Darcy?" she repeated, and she knelt down on the floor beside me, tucking all of my hair behind my back in an attempt to help—nothing could help right now, though. "Are you okay?"

"N-No." I hadn't thought much about what I might say after that, but there was no way to lie and say that I was fine, not right now. My stomach hurt. My throat burned, and my heart felt like it was being used in a game of tug-of-war between two vampires. It was being ripped in two, and there was nothing that I could do to stop it.

Had any of it been real? I wanted to believe that it had; everything Esther said proved that it had, but the insecurities in me were stronger than I liked to think. It had all seemed too good to be true, so believing that it _was_ too good to be true was simple, easier than believing it had all been real.

Say it was real: what was I gonna do now? If Esther wanted me dead, I was gonna die. I didn't really see a way around that, but how could I take Kol down with me? How could I break up with him, though, and destroy him in a way he might not come back from?

There was no easy solution.

"What's going on?" Elena asked, and her arms wrapped around my torso, pulling me upwards to get me back on my feet.

My legs were weak, and the crawl across the room had done a number on my knees, but I was at least able to stand up. "I-I think I'm coming down with something."

I wasn't one to play hooky, but if there was any time to do it, this was definitely it.

What was I gonna do? What was I gonna let myself believe?

* * *

 **A/N: There's another chapter about as long as this one coming up in a few chapters. Things are escalating. :)**

 **The lyrics are from the song _Iris_ by the Goo Goo Dolls.**

 **Read, review, and enjoy! :)**


	25. 24: Real or Not Real

"Time goes by,  
And I've been holding everything inside,  
But now I've got nothing left to hide  
When I'm with you, oh, you.

But I can see  
How strong a man I'm gonna have to be  
To do for you what comes so naturally.  
It's in the way you move,

And all I want  
Is a chance to prove,  
Show all I can do.

I believe in starting over.  
I can see that your heart is true.  
I believe in good things coming back to you.  
You're the light that lifts me higher.  
So bright, you guide me through."

* * *

The nauseous feeling left me after I threw up again, but I didn't tell anyone that. For once, I let myself be the sick one who needed taken care of, complete with soup and warm honey tea.

Mostly, I just wanted to be left alone with my thoughts, and pretending that I still felt nauseous was the best way to get that.

Esther contradicted herself; she said that Kol didn't care about me, yet I had the power to destroy him. While everything she said made sense in my insecure brain, it didn't add up, but I couldn't shake what she had said. _"My son is not who you think he is."_

All I knew about Kol were the things he told me, and was I really so delusional as to believe that he wouldn't lie to me?

I had been, but there was still no way to know for sure if he _had_. I hadn't thought to ask him if he had killed anyone. The idea that he hadn't had been based on assumptions.

How many people had he killed, though? Was there a trail of bodies behind him, or was it the bloodlust that he still hadn't gotten under control? He mentioned that when he was around me, it was easy to forget, but he struggled sometimes when we weren't together. Maybe it had gotten the better of him a few times, or maybe it had all been a lie.

There was only one way to find out.

I wasn't left alone with my thoughts for long; the very man I was thinking about showed up with wide eyes, but when he saw me sitting on the bed, the tension in his body relaxed, his eyes softening.

"You're alright."

I let out a breath. "Sure. I think I'm coming down with something actually. I've thrown up twice already in the past hour."

His eyebrows furrowed, and he crossed the room to sit down on the bed beside me, barely remembering to close my door behind him. "Are you alright, love?

"I guess so," I said, but my eyes fell away from him while my mind spun with all the questions I was honestly terrified to ask. How could I make myself do it? What would it do to him if I doubted him, after everything?

I didn't notice what Kol was looking at when he walked over to my desk, but whatever it was grabbed his attention. One hand lingered on the edge of my desk, his fingers grazing the item, and all it took was one glance at him to understand.

He was looking at the invitation that his mother had brought over.

"My mother didn't just show up with an invitation," he said, letting out a deep sigh while those eyes moved away from the desk and back over to me. "What did she say to you?"

This was the fear that had been in his eyes when he came over. He somehow knew that his mother had been here, and that scared him.

What would he have to be afraid of? What words could she say to me that he didn't want me to hear? The truth maybe?

The nauseous feeling was coming back, but I didn't think I was actually sick. It felt like physical sickness, but it was probably something else, something that resembled fear. If the truth was anything different from what Kol told me, I didn't really want to hear it, but I had to, for my own good.

"She wanted to invite me to the ball," I said, and I made sure to clear my throat, to get any and everything that might stop me from saying what needed to be said out of the way.

A breath passed through his lips, which were slightly parted, before I could say anything. "She says she wants her family to be whole again."

For a moment, I had something to distract myself. "How do you feel about that?"

He shook his head. "I don't think we know how to be a family anymore."

It was just a moment of distraction, as the conversation died in an unusual way after that. We weren't the type to just stop talking and let conversations end uncomfortably, but there was only one thing on my mind right now, something I didn't wanna say out-loud.

"What's wrong, darling?"

My eyes moved away from him, towards the wall on the opposite side of the room, and my lungs filled with air one final time. "What is this?"

"What are you talking about?" he asked, and I felt the bed beside me shift a bit, as if someone had sat down on the edge of it.

I pressed my lips together. "Exactly like I said. What is this?"

"What did my mother say to you?" he asked again, but there was more fear in his voice now, enough that I couldn't look away from him anymore. The pain in his eyes made my heart feel as if it was being physically wringed out, like some sick way Klaus decided to get every drop of blood from my body.

Still, I had to hold strong. I couldn't let my emotions get the better of me right now, not until I knew for sure. "I asked a question. Please answer it."

"Darcy—"

"Answer me, Kol!" I interrupted, and I think that marked the first time I had ever raised my voice at him. We were always quiet, afraid anyone might overhear the wrong thing, but I didn't have it in me to be quiet right now.

"What do you want from me?" he demanded, and the volume of his voice was rising much higher than it probably should've as well, considering we weren't alone. "I've told you what this is! This is the first time since I turned that I've felt anything real, anything of actual value! I care about you. What did my mother say?"

"How many people have you killed since I took the dagger out?"

The silence that followed, paired with shifted glances, made my stomach twist up in a way that gave nauseous a new meaning.

It made my blood feel cold, the depths of my soul drain out and into the silent oblivion that was around us. These kinds of silences were the ones I always dreaded, with an aura of fear lingering. I had always hated horror movies for the very reason of silence; just before something scary was going to happen, everything grew silent, even the music most times. The fear that built up over the silence was far too intense, and I couldn't handle it.

This silence was different, as there was pain and heartbreak waiting on the other side of it instead of a scary scene in a movie, but it numbed me just the same.

"Two," he finally said, around the same time I struggled to breathe in a gasp of air.

The air that was currently in my throat got stuck there, the shock of his response causing every part of my body to tense up. "Two?"

"The first was the day you took the dagger out," he said, the words falling out of his lips faster than usual. "I was trying to leave them alive, but I wasn't able to do that with the first person I drank from. And I killed someone the day that Klaus started watching you, keeping me from you. It was wrong. I lashed out, and I shouldn't have. I was hurt and scared, and I imagine that person felt that a million times worse, even with my enhanced emotions."

Breaths were coming out a lot heavier now, warmer and less strained despite the rapid speed of them. Despite the heavier breaths, my chest felt lighter, the fear slipping away with each and every word Kol confessed to me.

"That's . . . remorse," I managed to say amongst the swelling in my chest.

"Yes."

A breath that probably resembled a laugh pushed out of my lips, which were trying to curl into a smile. "You . . . it's not in your character to feel remorse."

"You've given me a reason to feel remorse," he said, but his eyes found mine now, the warmth within them bringing back the pieces of my soul that the silence had stolen.

"This is real," I whispered.

One hand moved up to touch my cheek, his thumb tenderly rubbing across the icy skin. "I told you that it was."

"Your mom said that it wasn't, that you didn't know love and that it was just fun until you moved on," I said, and the words began pouring out of me without filter, without a second thought. This was Kol; it was all real, and Esther had lied about everything.

He killed _two people_ , and while no, those two people probably didn't deserve to die, he felt remorse about it. He wanted to be better.

His brow tightened, the bridge of his nose crinkling a bit with the movement. "She's lying."

I tried to smile again, and I think it worked this time, as a small ray of light shimmered across the golden warmth within his eyes. "She said you need your family, that you need to fix yourself alone."

"I don't care what she says," he snorted. "Our family is broken."

My head was suddenly spinning as the words were catching back up to me, not out of regret but actual thoughts and logic. She wanted me to break up with Kol, despite the fact that I gave him a reason to feel remorse and do better. She talked about the horrible things she had watched her children do, so why wouldn't she want someone who made one of her children better to stick around?

The very idea that I needed to be out of the picture to make her family whole didn't sit well with me, and that icy touch of fear began creeping back into me, for a reason entirely different this time.

"Why would she want me to go away if she wanted you guys to be whole? If I'm making you better?"

He was just as confused as I felt, his body stiffening while the thought raced through his mind. "Maybe because she knows Nik won't react well?"

"Unless she doesn't want you guys to be whole at all. I think she wants to kill you all."

* * *

 **A/N: The lyrics are from _I Believe In You_ by Michael Buble.**

 **Read, review, and enjoy. :)**


	26. 25: Not One

"You ask me how I feel,  
And it's really no big deal . . .  
. . . Union Square on Sunday morning,  
Wind wakes up the trees.  
I can't help but stare and wonder  
How you fell for me.  
It's too much to explain,  
But believe me when I say,

You're only everything.  
You're only everything.  
You're only everything to me."

* * *

"She's gonna kill me."

"The hell she will." Kol's words were fierce, a fiery growl that he practically had to spit back at me as he leaned against my headboard, with rage burning in his eyes bright enough that I wondered if it would burn the house down.

He hadn't said much since I came to the conclusion that their mother wanted to kill them all, but it wasn't because he didn't believe it. Quite the opposite, he _did_ believe it, easily.

"I think she wants me to break up with you and leave so she can kill all of you, and then I think she's gonna kill me when you're not there to protect me," I said.

His eyebrows furrowed, the rest of his face twisting into a scowl. "What does she think—it was all too good to be true. I knew that."

"I think that was the worst 'meet the parents' situation anyone has ever been in," I mumbled.

Despite the horrible situation we were facing, the scowl softened so the tiniest smirk could take its place. "Well, you did kill my father, so that's probably worse, right?"

"I didn't kill him," I said, and I climbed up onto the bed to sit beside him, holding on to one of the decoration pillows that were still laying on it. Usually, I took them off if I planned on staying in bed for any extended period of time, but I had just gotten back into bed after throwing up again before Kol showed up. "Your brother did."

He nodded. "Right. You met him when you were trying to carry out your plan to kill my brother, so I suppose both instances are tied for the worst situation then. It's probably best I never met your parents. Didn't they want to kill the entire vampire race?"

"My adopted parents, yes," I said. "My biological mother was one until your brother compelled her to take off her daylight ring and burn in the sun. She had been kinda awful the whole time she was in town, though, but I'm not sure if it was because she turned off her humanity or why exactly she was the way that she was."

He took a deep breath and let his head fall back into the wall on my bed. "What are we going to do, darling?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "Whatever your mom tries to get you to do, even simple stuff, I guess don't. This ball seems a bit suspicious to me. Why does she want me there just to break up with you? It seems a bit much."

"She's going to do something then," he said. He rubbed his hand over his face for a moment, his eyes darkening around the edges while the very idea that his mother had come back from the dead just to kill them all rummaged through his mind.

"Yeah, but what?"

His eyes moved over to me, and they softened, like usual when he was looking at me. Even when he was pissed off, he struggled to look at me with anger, and even now, in the face of his mother trying to kill anyone he had ever loved, he still looked at me with soft eyes. "What's more important right now is that she's invited the whole town—including your sister, your brother, and the Salvatores."

"I know." The thought had occurred to me, briefly, but what stuck the most was everything Esther had said, all that she said I had to do. There were still some lingering questions about some things she said, but most of the questions I needed answers to _had_ answers. This was as real for Kol as he said it was.

"What are you gonna do?" he asked.

There was hope in his eyes, something that Kol Mikaelson didn't like to feel. Every time he felt hope in the past, it was always ripped away from him, thrown back in his face. Hope had become a word he didn't believe in, but there it was, at the forefront of his eyes.

I was tired of lying to them, and truth be told, there wasn't a reason to anymore. Everyone knew that the Originals were out of their coffins. Rebekah and Kol had all of the daggers. There was no other reason to not tell the truth.

They were gonna hate him, no matter what I did or said. They could either learn to love and accept him or not; he wasn't going anywhere just because they didn't agree with what I had done.

"I'm gonna tell them the truth, before the ball," I said, and I took a deep breath, my eyes drifting away from him and towards the door. "I'll figure out exactly how to do it sometime between now and then."

His eyebrows rose. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure." I reached over and placed my hand on his, my fingertips rubbing a small circle on the back of his palm. "I don't wanna lose you, Kol. They'll get over it eventually. It's my life, not theirs."

His lips grabbed onto mine with a fervor I wasn't really expecting, not amidst the important conversation we were having. There was a time and place for everything, and maybe if I had seen him leaning in, I would've insisted that this wasn't the time, on top of having fresh vomit on my breath. Cherry juice can only wash down so much.

He didn't even seem to care or maybe even notice. There was determination behind his lips, and he pulled me onto him as quickly as he safely could.

"I'm sick," I breathed, somehow managing to pull my lips far enough away that I could get some words out.

"I don't care." His grip around my waist tightened, pulling me closer to him while he began kissing along my jawline. "I don't know when I'll get to see you with everything going on. Until we have the situation with my mother under control . . . ."

I nodded. "I know, Kol. We need to focus on getting us both out of this alive, okay?"

"I could kill my mother," he suggested. "We've all suffered the grief of her death once."

"You can't do that," I disagreed. "Rebekah still has a dagger. Your siblings will all use it on you if you do, and they won't take it out. They'll probably kill me, wait a couple hundred years, and then decide to let you out and suffer."

"You're right." He took a deep breath. "I just need them to realize the same thing I did—that she wants to kill us all."

As horrible as it was to talk about killing one's own mother, the fact that she wanted to kill all five of her children, along with anyone that her children cared about, kind of balanced out the act of killing his mother.

It was a horrible thought, but she came back with the intentions of killing all of her children. Sure, they had probably done some horrible things that she had to witness, but maybe they could find some sort of redemption that didn't lead to death.

Just as I leaned in to press my lips against his, something underneath me began to vibrate. It was pressed against my leg, the same place that the pockets on his jeans were, so I knew in an instant that Kol was getting a phone call.

I rolled off of him, which pulled an angry grunt out of him, and he slid his finger across the screen without even looking at who was calling.

"What?" The anger didn't really fade, but it became laced with arrogance, in a way that I had only seen Kol do before. "You have no power over me anymore, Nik, but for our mother's sake, I will come home."

He tossed his phone onto the bed, barely taking the time to hang up on his brother, and his hands reached over to grab onto my face one last time. There was a delicacy in this kiss that was unlike Kol, and all I could think about was that moment with his arms around me, the two of us dancing to the sweet song that elegantly sang the words we couldn't say. Love was inevitable, if not already upon us both, and for me, I imagined it was obvious; I was throwing caution to the wind for him, the one that my soul found in a coffin one day and whispered, _"Him."_ It was a cliché thought, but it was real. It was the only explanation I had found that made any semblance of sense.

I knew what the Originals were, that one of the Original brothers was a blood crazed maniac, but I pulled the dagger out anyways. Because my soul knew that he was a kindred spirit, a man that I would be willing to give my heart to in less than a month. We had so many differences, in both personality and the things we liked or disliked, but something about our souls felt the same, like they were two puzzle pieces that were meant to find each other and stick together.

Maybe it would be forever, or maybe it wouldn't. If nothing else came from this whirlwind romance, my freedom would. The freedom that swept over me and gave me the desire to look for other ways, to find alternative routes to reach my goal: Kol set me free from the prison I had created within myself, that I had allowed others to guard and keep me locked up in.

He had to physically rip himself away from me, moving across the room with nothing but a blur in sight. These were the goodbyes that I hated. This was the feeling that I never wanted to feel again once this was all over.

There was an overwhelming emptiness that swept over me, like the air that pushed off the closing door. It wasn't normally like that. I always liked being around him more than I liked him being gone, but this felt different.

Was it because I loved him, or was it because I didn't know how we would ever see each other again after the ball Saturday?

* * *

 **A/N: The lyrics are from the beautiful song _Everything_ by Parachute.**

 **Sorry I've been so spotty with updates! There aren't many chapters of this story left, and I've only gotten chapter one of the sequel written. (And the prologue, of course) I've been outlining this Kai story I got an idea for, and it's taken up all of my free time because I'm so excited to write it. I've been interested in writing a Kai story for a while, so I'm eager to get started on it.**

 **Don't worry, however. I will post it once I get it completely outlined, but I will still continue to update this story and work on it as well. I used to get three, sometimes four, chapters out in a single day, but I might only get one done, with me working on two different stories.**

 **I think the hardest part is gonna be not putting Kol when I mean to type Kai, or vice versa. When I was typing the outline, I did it at least three times already. x3**

 **Anyways, enough rambling. You're in for a big surprise next chapter. ;) Read, review, and enjoy!**


	27. 26 Plus

"I remember the day, between the past and the pain.  
We were never afraid of places unknown.  
There was nothing to fear, there was faith in the air.  
We will never be scared of letting go.  
What happened to the world I used to know?"

* * *

"This can't be happening. This can't . . . this can't."

Saturday had finally arrived, after a couple more days of actually being sick and pretty weak. That was what I got for playing hooky. I ended up really getting sick, sick enough that I spent most of my days laying around in bed, doing a whole lot of nothing.

Stomach bugs were notorious for leaving me for dead, but something about this felt different. These kinds of illnesses didn't allow for any kind of food to be kept within my body, not until the worst had cleared my system and recovery was imminent.

I was able to eat. I was able to keep most stuff down, but things were exceptionally worse when I first woke up.

Until I woke up this morning throwing up again, after feeling like myself again last night, the thought hadn't even occurred to me.

It was ringing in my mind now, that one singular thought that, despite being completely impossible, seemed to be screaming at me.

 _You're only sick in the mornings. After lunch, the sickness is gone._

The very thought had me so messed up inside that it made me sick again, or that might've been the supposed morning sickness. I found myself in the bathroom again, sitting in the floor, leaned against the wall near the toilet while my mind tried to come up with any scenario except the one that seemingly had presented itself to me.

There was no way I was pregnant. My period . . . actually hadn't come yet. It hadn't occurred to me, in the middle of everything going on and all the excitement that Kol had brought to my life, but my period was a week late. For me, that wasn't normal.

My breaths began shaking out of me, some parts of my body trembling along with it. There was one way to get this feeling off my back for sure, to put these terrifying thoughts to rest.

Hidden just underneath our bathroom cabinet, tucked back behind the usual feminine products that neither Jeremy or our dad would've ever dared to look past, was an unopened box of pregnancy tests.

Elena bought them years ago. She had gotten them a couple weeks after she and Matt had sex for the first time, when she was a day late. The panic had been there the very next day, even though they used a condom and did everything safely. Her paranoia about ruining her life set in, and she bought a pregnancy test at the first non-existent sign of being pregnant.

She never got to take them, though. The day she planned to, she got her period, and that was that. The test was in the back of our bathroom cabinet ever since.

Hopefully it wasn't expired. Getting another one in secret would've been nearly impossible.

Just as I pushed myself off the wall, to begin digging through our cabinet for the tests, Elena came walking into the room, concern twisting across her expression. She looked at me as if I was lying on the floor dead.

"I thought you were better," she said. "You seemed fine last night."

"I thought so, too."

Her eyebrows knit together. "I think you should stay home tonight. Maybe call Kol and have him come watch you while we're all at the ball? I would stay here, but we need to talk to Esther."

I shook my head. "No, go on. I should be fine by tonight, if pattern holds up. I think I need to go. She wanted us both there."

"I'll go get you something to drink," she said, and that was an offer I couldn't refuse. The contents of my stomach were gurgling again, and I absolutely was over this already.

Somehow, I managed to keep everything down and dug the box out, finding the expiration date across the box to be February of the following year. There were three tests inside, and just for good measure, I decided it would be best to talk all three of them. Three were far more accurate than one ever could be.

I waited and attempted to listen for any sign of life downstairs, and the deep voices that didn't belong to anyone in my immediate family gave me assurance that I would have time to at least pee on the sticks before Elena made it back up with something for me to drink.

There was no way to go about this besides just sitting down and doing it. My heart was hammering against my chest, bringing beads of cold sweat to ever crevice of skin sweat could slip into. I had learned how to breathe even when my mind forgot how, but the air stung inside of my lungs, pulling goosebumps onto the skin of my arms like an army of reminders of the sheer impossibility that might've been happening to me.

The easiest way to use all three tests, without having to wait until I had to go to the bathroom again, was to pee into a cup and then dip the tests into them. The only cup in here was the one we used to get water to rinse our mouths out after brushing our teeth, but I would make sure to get a new one after it was all said and done with.

Filling the cup half full, I cleaned myself up and unwrapped each little purple and white stick. Since there wasn't a lot of time, I couldn't just sit around and think about how horrifying this situation was. All I could do was rip the caps off the end of each stick and dip the tests inside of the cup, soaking them thoroughly enough to get an accurate response.

I put the caps back on each stick, not allowing myself to see the results. They were supposed to lay flat while they worked on getting the results, so I laid them across the counter, back side facing up, and draped a towel over them, in a way that was unsuspicious enough.

The place I kept the vervain hidden underneath my bed seemed a good enough place to hide the box until I could dispose of it without anyone realizing what I was doing, so that's where I threw it. There were footsteps moving up the stairs, so I had to clean up any traces of my mess.

Elena got to my room around the same time I stepped out of the bathroom. She had a small glass of cherry juice, along with a bottle of water, and her face was tense, with more annoyance than it had had before she went down there.

Whoever was down there—my money was on a vampire—was pissing her off about something.

All I had to do was raise an eyebrow in her direction, and she sighed. "It's Damon and Stefan. They're both downstairs convincing me that it's a bad idea to go tonight. Esther wanted to meet the doppelgängers, and they insist that you're enough. I still think you should stay home tonight."

"The way this virus has been, I'll be fine tonight," I disagreed. "As much as I like the idea of you staying home, I don't really think we can do that. Besides, I can protect myself. If a situation gets bad enough, I can at least stun someone to get myself far enough away that Damon or someone can protect me."

She didn't look convinced, but there was so much to do today with not a whole lot of time, so instead of sticking around and arguing with the stubborn twin who usually got her way, she left, back downstairs to continue convincing the Salvatores to leave her be.

It left me alone with the three little sticks, covered by the hand towel, and my hands were trembling again. I stepped into the bathroom, taking a good long sip of cherry juice, and prepared myself for whatever I was going to find.

Slowly, I removed the towel and took one final deep breath. There wasn't time for standing around anxiously, like I might've done in another situation, so instead, I had to just flip them all over.

The first one made my stomach knot up, the little blue plus symbol much more vibrant than I imagined it might be. There was no way, however. That must've been the faulty of the three.

The second one had the same results, as did the third one.

All three tests were positive.

My legs gave out from underneath me as the weight of this news really hit me. Before that, it had just been a fear, an impossibility that I was trying to wipe from my mind, but it wasn't a fear anymore.

This was real; I was pregnant.

How could that have happened? Vampires can't have kids. That was one of the abilities they lost after becoming immortal. Rebekah wanted a child more than anything, which was what she hated most about being a vampire. All I had ever slept with _were_ vampires, and Damon had been almost a year ago.

Somehow, Kol had gotten me pregnant.

My mind was spinning, and I found myself sliding into the floor again, one hand covering my face while the other held the three tests.

How could a vampire have a baby? What would that even make the child?

It explained why Esther wanted me dead. Somehow, she knew I was pregnant before I did, and she wanted to kill me before I could bring the child into the world.

What did that make this child? If he was a vampire, I was a witch-werewolf hybrid . . . what would that make this child?

My mind began thinking over all the thing Esther had said to me, maybe something that might've pointed in the direction of how this might've happened. All I could think of was the first blunt thing she had said to me.

" _Your magic is not of nature."_

" _I know it's not common, but it's of nature, even if it's not normally how nature does things."_

" _Regardless, it has put you in a dangerous position that leaves me no other choice."_

How had my magic done this, though? It wasn't like I put a spell on Kol while we were making love that suddenly made him fertile.

Or maybe . . . the feeling that resembled magic coursing through my veins wasn't sexual desire. Maybe the magic from his blood _was_ coursing through my veins, and I somehow took enough to make him fertile, maybe even temporarily mortal.

It didn't make any sense to me, how that was possible, but it was the only explanation I had. Kol didn't get anyone else pregnant over the centuries, so what other reason would there be for me suddenly falling pregnant?

The possibilities were endless. What was inside of me?

I was a werewolf and a witch. Kol was a vampire, and at one point, he was a witch as well.

Whatever this child was going to be, nature didn't approve, and if I stayed here, I was gonna die.

This _baby_ was going to die, _my_ baby . . . Kol's baby.

Somehow, I had to get out of here, alone. Esther put killing her kids as her priority, since I was still alive, so I would have a chance to get away, as long as they were still breathing.

As long as none of them followed me, neither would she, not until she had killed them all. Not only did I have to leave alone, I had to make sure she couldn't do anything to hurt them.

One way or another, Kol and I would both make it out of this alive, even if it meant being alone to do it.

* * *

 **A/N: Surprise!**

 **Okay, so, this was the twist I was rambling about however many chapters ago that I wasn't sure if you guys would love it or hate it. When I originally had the idea for this story, Esther met Darcy and put a spell on her that made her a vessel of life, as Kol couldn't stay away from her, and that would kind of reverse his vamprism while he was around her so that Esther could kill him to kill all of her children, but then that timeline didn't work out, and I wasn't entirely sure how that would affect her with her being a siphoner and whatnot.**

 **But, I hope this isn't too far out there for you guys. I haven't really watched _The Originals_ , so I don't know how things went with Hope and whatnot. I'm not really trying to follow that storyline but instead make one of my own.**

 **The lyrics are from the song _The World I Used to Know_ by We Came as Romans.**

 **Read, review, and most importantly, enjoy. :)**


	28. 27: Love and Lost

"Then I think of the start,  
And it echoes a spark.  
And I remember the magic electricity.  
Then I look in my heart.  
There's a light in the dark,  
Still a flicker of hope that you first gave to me  
That I wanna keep.  
Please don't leave."

* * *

Somehow, Elena and I managed to convince Stefan and Damon that she wasn't going to go tonight, that she would stay home and let me go alone. They probably wouldn't have believed us had we not gotten Bonnie and Jeremy in on it as well, claiming that they, too, would stay behind and keep an eye on her.

They didn't like the idea of her going, but they respected that it was her choice to make. If the Original witch wanted her dead, she was going to kill her, but I didn't imagine it was going to be at the ball. There were far better places for her to do that.

Elena and I helped one another find a dress, with Elena's being far more stunning than the almost vintage gown that I picked out for myself. The gown wasn't over the top, dripping with sequins that demanded attention—not that there was anything wrong with that, but tonight, it was essential that I blended in as much as possible. A baby pink color, with white lace embellishing the bottom hem of the skirt as well as a small bit of lace that decorated the mid-section of the dress, the A-line skirted dress was everything I needed it to be. Tonight wasn't about having a magical evening at the ball. It was about telling Kol that I had to leave town and taking his distraction at his mother's ball as a chance to get away.

Right now, until I was certain about all of this, I didn't want him to know. If he even believed me that they were his kids, which I didn't imagine he would all things considered, he had to worry about saving his own life, not mine and this child's. His mother had dark plans ahead, for both of us, but the only way to ensure we both made it out alive was to go our separate ways.

It probably would've been easier to just disappear, but I just didn't have it in my heart to leave without at least saying goodbye, without telling him that I loved him. He had to know that, and he deserved to hear it from me.

Damon and Stefan had bought a car to transport us all in comfortably, as neither Damon or Stefan's car could fit three people, but I had barely paid attention to the sleek black Buick sedan they escorted me into.

I thought about bringing a shrug, to help with the fact that the dress was strapless, but I wore a white skirted wool coat instead. It was a lot warmer anyways.

The entire way to the ball, Damon and Stefan were in the front seat strategizing, talking about the best thing for all of us to do to figure out why Esther was really back—I knew, but I hadn't told anyone about the visit she paid me out—but my mind wasn't on Esther or even the ball at all.

All I could think about was the life inside of my stomach, the early stages of a child that was going to defy nature itself. What exactly would this child be? It was surely going to be alive, but would there be vampire blood within its veins?

My mind was on the child, but it drifted to everything I was giving up tonight. It drifted to Kol, who had been the best part of my life thus far, and all I could think about was how broken he was going to be when I told him that I was leaving, that he couldn't come with me. Would it take breaking up with him to get him to let me go? I didn't imagine he would believe me when I broke up with him anyways.

Somehow, I had to say goodbye to him _without_ Esther overhearing our conversations, but it still had to be public enough that I could get away from him. I didn't imagine he was just gonna watch me walk away so easily.

All the happiness I had felt over the past month or so was going to be gone, by my own choice. Was that what motherhood was? Giving up everything to safely raise your child?

It didn't seem right, as people always talked about how wonderful being a parent was, even through the hard parts, but essentially, life did completely change and turn around when a baby was brought into the picture. At least it was supposed to, especially if dangerous habits were involved.

Some people didn't have to give up everything, but there were probably some out there giving up a lot more. Some, instead of aborting their child and hiding their sins, got themselves thrown out of their houses to have this child, to bring a life into the world.

Becoming a mother was complicated, something I wasn't anywhere near ready for, but it was time to start learning and figuring it all out.

I hoped that I would be a good mother, even if I didn't know the first thing about how to be one. Sure, I could always go off of Miranda's example, as she had been a wonderful mother, but the situation was completely different. This was a child that was probably considered an abomination by nature. The Original witch said herself that she would kill me to ensure that the child was never born, in less words than that.

Not only did I have to be the best mother I could be, I had to protect it from the world around it, the inevitable danger that it was going to be in simply because it existed. Right now, the hows and whys didn't really matter. All that mattered was this child's safety.

Damon and Stefan had allowed me to get ready at their place, as their bathroom was much larger. I didn't tell them that the real reason was so they wouldn't see Elena getting ready herself.

I hadn't actually expected her to already be here, but she had just arrived around the same time we did. She was headed for the stairs, leading towards the elaborate doors of the stunning mansion—I hadn't been here since it was completely finished—but stopped when she saw the Buick pull around the rounded driveway. There was a man working valet, so we were all able to get out and allow him to park the car wherever it was supposed to be parked.

Damon was the first to get out, and his eyes were blazing. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Leave it alone, Damon," Elena said, and she pressed her lips together. "Esther wants to talk to me. There's a reason for that. Let's go inside and find out what that reason is."

Though I imagined that Esther had invited almost the whole town, I wasn't actually prepared for the whole town to be waiting inside the doors. Everyone in the room was dressed for the occasion, wearing different gowns of different types, but the inside of the house looked marvelous.

The white lace heels I wore made a loud noise on the floors beneath me, cutting through some of the mild chatter around the room. Everything smelled so lovely, with flowers decorating some of the sections of the marvelous and grand room we stood in. Lights twinkled from the railings, giving the room an elegant touch that even the Lockwood mansion struggled to match.

We had barely stepped inside the room and had our jackets taken from us when we noticed the five Original siblings standing near one another, talking amongst the crowd and politely introducing themselves to those that didn't know them. They all were dressed for the occasion, but the one that stuck out the most to me was the very man I needed to speak with, the one that I didn't want to lose right now.

Kol cleaned up well. It wasn't the first time I had seen him in a suit of sorts, but it was the first time it was a full out formal suit, bow-tie and all. His hair had been trimmed up since I last saw him, but the moment his eyes met mine, there was nothing else in the world that could've compared to the beauty that was within those warm eyes.

To him, he was seeing something beautiful, but to me, I was looking at the most valuable treasure in the world. It was the most bittersweet thing I had ever actually seen, but I couldn't peel my eyes away from how stunning he actually looked.

I wasn't the only one who noticed Kol, but until I saw Elena swiftly crossing the room towards him, it didn't for one second occur to me that there was something very wrong here.

I hadn't gotten the chance to tell them. Amidst all the sickness and everything that had happened today with the pregnancy, I hadn't actually thought about telling them.

When Elena stood face-to-face with him, she didn't care about where she was or the people around them. She reached her hand back and slapped him, hard. It got the attention of many amongst the crowd, including some of his siblings who hadn't been paying attention.

Elijah and Klaus both wore expressions that painted their confusion well, whereas Rebekah's eyes spoke a threat of death towards my sister. Kol, however, just stood there, eyes wide while he looked from my sister and over to me.

This wasn't the time or the place. This wasn't how I wanted to tell them the truth, so all I could do was desperately try and plead with him, to convey the question that I couldn't ask. _Can you please just play along for now?_

Have you ever seen a heart break? Ever seen the ripple effect that starts the actual moment that someone's heart shatters?

I did, in that moment. It was a vivid picture painted across the marble-like irises of his eyes, all warmth and love gone as raw pain took hold. All of the promises that I had made to him, the promise of telling everyone the truth so this very thing didn't happen, were empty. I hadn't done that, and I wasn't allowing him to do that either, not right now.

What would Stefan and Klaus do if they heard the truth anyways?

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Elena hissed, tearing Kol's broken gaze from me so he could look to my sister.

He sighed and held both of his hands up. "Please, Elena. You're making a scene."

"I'm about to make a lot more," she threatened, and she took a single step towards him.

"Don't ruin my mother's ball," he disagreed. "She is really looking forward to the evening. She fancies such things."

From where I stood, a few feet behind her, I could see Elena's jaw lock as the rest of her body tensed as well. "Go to hell."

"I'm sure I will," he murmured, but the words came out more pained than I think he intended. I wasn't sure if it was because I had just broken his heart or if the very idea of being in hell scared him, now that he no longer believed himself to be completely above everyone. He still had an ego, but that was just Kol Mikaelson.

"Why would you do this?" she demanded. "What could you have possibly gained from it?"

"Just doing what was asked of me."

That was a kick right to the gut, though I was glad for once that it wasn't actually a kick to the gut. It probably would've felt better than the pain and guilt churning inside of me, but with the child inside of me, it was dangerous.

Though I deserved to feel pain for what I had done, a kick in the stomach wasn't the way to go.

"Klaus didn't know you were there," she snapped. "How could you just be doing what was asked of you? Who put you up to this?"

People around them were beginning to stare, and it was only a matter of time before things got far too out of hand. I quickly found myself closing the distance between Elena and me, before Kol got a chance to come up with some sort of answer.

I grabbed onto Elena's arm and gave her the slightest pull. "Elena, please. Let's not do this."

The pain was brighter as I stood closer, and it felt as if his stare was physically breaking my own heart. What had I just done to him? Would he even trust me anymore? He was hesitant to trust anyone, and like his siblings, I had betrayed that trust.

Oh God. I hadn't even thought about it like that, but that was exactly what I had just done. I had plunged a metaphorical dagger into his heart.

The three of us were no longer standing alone, more than just Damon and Stefan approaching from behind us. Damon looked ready to kill, though I don't imagine Stefan understood any of this going on. We had been careful not to mention that I had a boyfriend at all, and while he might've figured it out, he _hadn't_ learned that he was a vampire, or even seen who he was.

Klaus and Elijah stepped up as well, standing behind Kol with their mixed confusion and anger taking dominance over their expressions, twisting the faces that had once been charming and turning them into something a bit terrifying, at least in the situation we were currently in.

"How might you know my brother, Elena?" was the first thing out of anyone's mouth, and Klaus was the one to ask the question.

Elijah's eyebrows remained woven together, his eyes moving away from everyone and over to his brother. "Where were you all this time, Kol?"

"Elijah, please," Kol said, and he tore his gaze away from me to look at his brother, emptying it of all emotion that he could. "This is not the place."

"He's right, Niklaus," Elijah said, after being reminded of the world around us. "We can all discuss this some other time, without the present company."

"You stay away from us," Elena warned, but she took a step back from the crowd, reaching over to grab onto my arm so she could start to pull me away from the Original brothers.

Klaus wasn't so quick to let go of the moment, however, and his eyes narrowed, focusing in on me. "Darcy, love, was he the one killing my hybrids?"

"No."

It was the best I could do. My attention was focused on remaining calm, on keeping my expression completely solemn, and trying to keep my heartrate even took more focus.

It wasn't the response Klaus expected, so maybe I had been successful. His eyebrows rose up, and Kol took the moment to look back at me, his own eyes widening a bit in surprise.

Had I really done it?

Damon's large hand wrapped around my other arm, the one Elena didn't have a hold of, and the two pulled me away from the Original three. They were moving quickly, ignoring the stares of the people around us. It was a bit uncomfortable, but the discomfort was short lived. When we made it into a separate room from the Mikaelson siblings, they let go of my arm.

Elena took a few steps away from me, rubbing her hand over her forehead while her jaw remained locked. "I want him dead."

"We'll work on that," Damon assured her. "I'll talk to the Original witch myself."

"No!"

My protests had fallen on deaf ears, as Elena was focused on watching Damon. The rage that rippled across his own locked jaw, burned through his usually bright eyes, would've scared me had I not known that _he_ couldn't do anything to hurt Kol.

He wanted to help Esther kill him, though, and I couldn't let them do that. Somehow, I had to leave town tonight and also ensure my friends didn't murder Kol in my absence.

This had become a huge mess, a mess I created for myself. Had I just told them, their anger would've been appropriately directed at _me_. They wouldn't want to kill me, so all they would feel is anger, not the murderous rage.

How could I make sure that they didn't kill him while I was away? If I told them the truth _now_ , at the ball, Stefan might kill me for interfering with his plans. Right now, dying or becoming a vampire was impossible, something that couldn't happen for a least nine more months.

I didn't know how far along I was, or how long this baby would have to develop inside of me, but I knew that it would be nine months, at most, before I could die safely, without taking another life with me.

After the commotion that had occurred, Elijah found a way to distract everyone by calling everyone into the ballroom for a dance to commemorate the evening. I was in no mood to dance, but Stefan didn't really give me much choice. Damon and Elena went out as partners, and he needed to keep an eye on things.

Dancing with him was stiff and awkward, and his eyes were studying me almost the entire time. It was as if he knew the truth, could read it from my face, but he wasn't reacting to it yet, only waiting for some sort of confirmation.

I had never been more relieved to have a change in partners, but the most relief came from _who_ my partner changed to: Kol.

He held onto me much differently than Stefan had, though his eyes still told a tragic story of heartbreak. The way he delicately glided me across the dance floor, spinning me at all the right times, it was easy to get lost in the moment.

"Come outside with me."

The people around us were still dancing away, with no end to the dance in sight. The music was still moving seamlessly, not slowly moving towards an end, so I imagined that there was still more time the dance was supposed to carry on.

He didn't care, however, and I knew this was it, my now or never chance to tell him the truth and get away.

But how would I make sure he didn't die while I was gone?

I allowed him to pull me off the dance floor, past all the people who weren't even paying attention and through the elaborate house. Since I had practically grown up going to the Lockwood mansion for parties often, I was used to nice mansions, but this was something out of an art museum. This was the work of a man who had been alive for a millennium.

We stepped out the back of the house, away from the crowd inside and all the people that might be listening in. As we stepped onto the marbled porch, I looked out in front of me to see lines and lines of cars, but lights decorated the elaborate railings along the back of the porch. Everything had been given a beautiful touch, as if it actually needed it to make the night magical.

It would've been easy to get lost in our surroundings, but even Kol knew that we didn't have time for that. Whatever time we had alone together was limited, as it had always been. From the beginning, we knew we were loving on borrowed time and that it would one day come to an end.

I just had no idea it would be this way.

"You said you were going to tell her."

My eyes fell, towards the railing beneath my fingertips that was cold to the touch. The air around us was cold, and I regretted giving up my jacket when we first came inside. "I know. I didn't get a chance."

He actually scoffed, turning his body towards me so I would be forced to look back at him, to face the consequences of what I had done—or hadn't done, in this case. "Didn't get a chance? You've had three days."

"You have every right in the world to be mad at me, and I am so sorry, but please, Kol," I whispered, and I reached a hand out to grab onto his, to help me hold onto his gaze to show him the depths of my heart, the emotions swirling around inside of me so fast that they were hard to keep up with. I couldn't tell if it was because I was pregnant or because of everything going on that I had to get away from. "There's something I have to tell you, something I have to do."

Watching the anger fall from his eyes, seeing as it morphed into the fear I must've been showing, felt good, in a way that it probably shouldn't have. It shouldn't have made me happy to see his feelings mold into mine the way that they were, but his genuine concern for my well-being, the concern that led him to feel the fear and desperation that I was, _did_ make me feel good. Above all else, it made me feel loved, and I didn't care how selfish that was.

"Darcy Gilbert, before you say anything, please understand that I love you," he said, and he let go of my hand so that he could grab onto my face. He got a full view of the tears that formed in my eyes, the smile that I tried to hold back unsuccessfully. "Whatever my mother has told you, whatever she's made you believe, please believe that."

My eyelashes fluttered wildly before my eyes, my head trying to fully comprehend what he was admitting out-loud to me for the first time. "W-What?"

"I love you," he said again, and a small smile curled onto those lips, caressing the words with a gentle touch that made my heart soar inside of my chest. "If it wasn't obvious enough, I'll make sure to say it clear enough for you. Please don't leave me. Life was just starting to get good."

Tears were forming in my eyes faster than I was prepared for, but by the time he was finished speaking, they actually obscured my vision. "I love you, Kol Mikaelson. You have no idea how much I love you."

He let out a breath of a laugh. "I think I might."

I attempted to wipe the tears away, keeping in mind the eye makeup on my face so I didn't make this moment look bad in the future. "I-I don't know what's happening right now, but Damon and Elena are going to talk to your mom. Whatever she does, you can't go along with it. I don't know if-if she's gonna poison you, or what she might come up with, but if she wants you to do something, _don't_."

"Let's go somewhere," he said, without warning. The words fell out of his mouth the second my words ended.

My lungs felt as if they were caving in, and I struggled to swallow the lump that formed in my throat at the very suggestion of the two of us running away together, again. "I am."

"What?"

The letter I had written to Kol, the best explanation I could give to him about what was going on, was tucked away on the side of my bra. It had been uncomfortable at first, but I had gotten used to it, so much that I almost forgot that it was there.

I put it into his hands, the folded up square that I had poured my heart out on before getting ready for the ball tonight, and pressed my lips against his. I wanted to draw the kiss out, to make it something he would feel for days to come, but leaving was hard enough as it was. A kiss like that was sure to make it harder, maybe even impossible.

The second I pulled away, his arm reached out to grab onto mine, but I didn't actually let him stop me from stepping away from him, just a single step to get myself out of his grasps.

"You have to let me go, Kol," I whispered, and the tears forming in my eyes again burned mixed with the cold air around us.

His own eyes looked clouded, maybe even with tears, but I was struggling to see through my own again. "I will never let you go. Don't you get it?"

I let out an empty breath, the cloud that followed blowing back to touch my skin. "Haven't you heard? If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, it's yours."

"Whoever said that is stupid," he said. "If you love something, why would you ever let it go?"

"Because it needs you to."

The dam that had been holding my tears back broke, and they stung against my cold cheeks. Right now, I didn't even care. Crying was the only way I was gonna make it through this. If I tried to hold it back, I would've probably exploded at this point.

Releasing the tears made it possible to confirm the tears in his own, the tears he was trying with all of his might to hold back.

He shook his head, maybe as an attempt to stop what was happening or stop the tears. "Please, Darcy. I'm not ready to say goodbye to you."

My lungs began to shake, the smallest of smiles dancing onto my lips. "Then we won't say goodbye."

"Whatever is going on, we'll figure it out," he insisted, though his head was still shaking. "We'll get through it, together."

"We can't, not right now," I disagreed. "I swear to you, Kol Mikaelson. I'll come back, and I'll fix everything. First, I have to do something on my own."

"What could you possibly have to do on your own?" he asked. "Don't you get it? I can't handle losing you, and do you understand how horrible that makes me feel? Because I met you a month ago. _A month_. I've been alive for a thousand years, and the best days across the stretch of that time don't even compare to one of the days I've spent with you."

"What's going on out here?"

The voice that cut through our conversation, ending it before I could get a chance to say something in response to the beautiful confession he had just poured out onto me, was a kind one, not the voice of my sister or Damon. It was the polite voice of Elijah, and my heart actually fluttered in relief.

"Everything is fine, Elijah," Kol said, tearing his gaze away from me so that he could find his brother. "We were just about to head back inside."

"Actually, I was just leaving," I whispered.

Kol reached out a hand to grab onto me again, but I took another step away from him. Of course he could've physically stopped me; he could've held onto me so tightly that I could never get away, but Kol wasn't about that kind of thing.

"It was lovely to see you tonight, Darcy," Elijah said, taking a few steps towards us so he could put himself between Kol and me. He saw that Kol didn't want me to go, and he was going to help me out, even if he didn't know what was going on. "We should talk sometime tomorrow."

"Sure." My eyes stayed on Kol, and I saw the way his entire expression broke again, as if the already broken pieces of his heart were being shattered into even smaller pieces in front of me.

This was the only chance I saw at getting away, so I didn't stick around any longer. Heading back towards the door we came out of, I hurried my way back through the house and to the entrance. I had to find my jacket, but once I did, I was practically home free.

The valet man's eyebrows rose. "Leaving so soon?"

I nodded and folded my arms over my chest. "Yes. I, um, lost my ticket, though. I was in the black Buick?"

"We're not allowed to give out keys without the ticket," he said, and he gave me an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry. We were given strict orders."

"It's right here."

My body jolted at the sound of Stefan Salvatore behind me, and though it had scared me, I had never felt more relief for a magic solution.

He stepped up next to me to hand the man the ticket, and the man nodded curtly. Nothing more was said while the man searched for the matching key, not until he was off to actually get the car.

Stefan took a deep breath. "You opened the coffins. You knew who they all were."

My eyes closed, and I attempted to steady my own breaths. "Yes."

"You let them out."

"Yes." At this point, there was no point in attempting to lie. The truth was bound to come out sooner or later, and really, it was good to finally say it out-loud.

The sound of his hand rubbing across the skin of his face pulled my eyes back open, to find a small smile hanging on his lips. "Well, it worked out okay, so I guess I'll leave you alone and let his death ruin you enough. If you'll excuse me, I have to get inside to make sure my brother doesn't ruin this."

That was all he said before turning away from me and heading back inside, back towards whatever chaos was probably waiting within the walls. My body began to tremble, maybe a mixture of the fear and cold around me, and the only thing I could think to do was pull my phone out of my pocket, to try and warn Kol somehow.

 ** _I don't know what's going on in there, but something dangerous is happening. Get out of there if you have to. Please._**

* * *

 **A/N: The lyrics are from the song _Flicker_ by Niall Horan, which is where this story got its name.**

 **Let me know what you guys think! Only a few more chapters until the end of this story. I've got through the third chapter of the second part, however. :)**

 **Originally, when I wrote this chapter up, Kol told Darcy that he loved her, but the conversation didn't give her a chance to do the same, but I was too heartbroken by the idea that she left without telling him, so I added it in.**

 **Read, review, and enjoy. :)**

 **P.S. I know that Stefan isn't a mean guy, but this is in the middle of his revenge mode, where he pretended to not care about anything or anyone, so it was fitting that part of his character.**


	29. 28: Letters to a Friend

"Go ahead and wish me well.  
I'll cry a wishing well.  
I'll fly before I fail.  
I'll set sail and drift away."

* * *

It was hard leaving all the dresses behind, choosing only my pants and t-shirts to bring along. I didn't know how long I had until I started showing, so I had to bring the clothes that would still fit a pregnant woman.

There were a couple more things I had to do before leaving town, but there was so little time. The ball could've ended any moment now, and I had to be gone before that happened.

I couldn't leave without saying goodbye to everyone, in some way. It took more time than I hoped it would, writing out the notes for everyone, but Elena's was the hardest. We weren't apart very much over the years, just occasional sleepovers at friends' houses that we didn't share, or boyfriends. It was never more than a single night, however, and she was always right there if I ever needed her to be.

She couldn't be anymore. I had to leave her behind, for the safety of my child. If she followed, Klaus would as well, but maybe if I left her behind, he wouldn't care what happened to his second doppelgänger.

Despite the torment she would probably go through, having to supply the blood for all of his hybrids alone, at least I would know she was safe. Klaus would ensure that nothing could happen to her.

Her note was still the hardest, though. It took the longest because I had to start all over, finding the words I wrote out to be stupid or horrible or just wrong in every other way.

After placing Jeremy's note on his pillow, with the others in hand that needed to be properly distributed, I stood next to Elena's bed, staring down at the neatly made pillows where I planned to leave her note as well. My hands shook violently, so much that I struggled to even hold on to the notes. They were all folded up. To try and get a grip on myself, I placed Bonnie and Caroline's on Elena's desk, knowing that she would make sure they got them.

I loved Bonnie and Caroline. I didn't want to leave them behind either, but their notes didn't tell them what was going on. It was dangerous for too many people to know, and I didn't imagine people would come to the conclusion that I was pregnant with Kol's child.

The only way I was able to convince myself to put the note down was to read over it one last time, double checking to make sure that I hadn't left anything out that needed to be said.

 ** _Dear Elena,_**

 ** _You're not gonna understand why I'm doing this. I don't understand it myself, but it's what I have to do—for myself and for my child._**

 ** _Yeah. I'm pregnant. Crazy, right? I didn't know it either, not until this morning, but I am. Those three tests under the bathroom sink finally got some use. I have to get out of town for a while, at least until I can make sure no one ever finds out about this baby._**

 ** _I'm telling you because you're my sister, and I know you'll protect me and my unborn child better than anyone. You know the consequences of Klaus finding out._**

 ** _I love you so much. I know we've had our disagreements as of late, but I have to do this alone. If we both disappear, Klaus will hunt us down. At least if you're in town, he'll stick around, assuming I'm off with the one protecting me from the hybrids._**

 ** _I was supposed to tell you before the ball, and I'm sorry this is how I'm telling you, but I knew who Kol was. I was the one who took the daggers out of the Originals when Stefan had them hidden in the house. I knew who Kol was, but I didn't see a monster. I saw someone with endless possibilities ahead of him._**

 ** _You won't understand, and that's fine. He's my soulmate, and I think I'm his. Since taking the dagger out of him, he's changed so much, in a month's time. He's become someone worth loving, someone capable of remorse and feelings. I know that may be hard for you to see, with the past we have with his siblings, but don't look at them. Look at him._**

 ** _I understand if you hate him for a little bit, but can you look out for him for me? Make sure he doesn't come after me. Right now, the best thing is for_ _no one_ _to know._**

 ** _I don't have long, but I'm so sorry it has to be this way. This is what I have to do. One day, when everything is safe again, I will come home. I just have to make sure Klaus never knows about my children._**

 ** _-Darcy-_**

I folded it up and placed it against her pillow, a single tear falling down onto it and wetting the page. There wasn't time to linger, so I had to just go, placing a note for Alaric on the couch. He could've been back at any time, since he didn't actually go to the ball. There was really no time to waste.

The notes to Jeremy, Elena, Alaric, and Damon were the only ones that mentioned the baby. If there was anyone who would protect my secret, it would've been those four. Alaric had stated more than once that he would gladly give his life for any of us. It had never been said out loud, but he kind of viewed us as his kids, I think, which was fine because he became our guardian in a time where we desperately needed someone. I think he needed us just as much, too.

The hardest part for me was walking out the door and getting into the Buick. Leaving everything that I had ever known behind was hard. It was something I had never seen myself doing. Whenever we made plans for the future, Elena and I were always doing things together. We planned to go to Whitmore, where she would become a doctor and I would become a vet. I figured one twin could help the people whereas the other could help the animals.

That wasn't gonna happen anymore, though, at least not as far as I could tell. However long I was gone . . . I wasn't gonna get to graduate high school. I probably wasn't even going to make it to graduation, as I'd be around six or seven months pregnant, depending on how far along I was.

So much in my life had just flipped upside down without any warning. I was dating a vampire, so the thought of being safe and careful never occurred to either of us. Vampires shouldn't be able to procreate, a side effect of the immortality spell that their mother did on them.

This was what I had to do, though. I had to have this baby and somehow find a family who could protect it from Klaus while also help it discover who and what it really was.

What family would do that? Any witch family would know that the baby was going to be an abomination, as the spirits liked to keep its witches well-informed. Any werewolf family wouldn't want to keep the child of a vampire. The feud between them wasn't as horrible as it might've been in stories and literature, but they didn't like one another.

Maybe there was no safe place for my child except with me. Maybe I could never come back unless Klaus left.

The one comfort I could find was in the fact that they wouldn't assume it was Kol's. They would just keep it a secret because they didn't want Klaus to believe that either of the doppelgängers had carried on their bloodline. I had calculated it before, finding that a doppelgänger appeared ever five hundred or so years, so the less Klaus knew about, the better.

Five centuries is nothing for a man who was almost completely immortal.

There were no cars in the rounded driveway of the Salvatore Boarding house, but I imagined that Damon would be inside. Whatever Elena had done, whatever was going on that made Stefan believe that the Originals were going to die, Damon was so set on her not speaking with Esther. If she had, he probably didn't get a say in the matter. Somehow, they took him out of the equation.

Was it vervain? I imagined she did something to knock him out, but vervain wouldn't have lasted very long, not with him still ingesting it daily.

Normally, I would've knocked and waited for the door to open for me, but tonight, I didn't have the luxury of waiting. Every second counted right now, and I had to get out of town before someone found me. Would it be Elena? Would it be Kol? I didn't know, but if Kol found me, he wasn't gonna let me get away. He wouldn't understand that I had to go alone, at least until the threat of their mother was dealt with.

Would it ever be, though? She came back after all this time. Who was to say she wouldn't come back again?

The future used to always seem so clear, even after Klaus came into town. Once we knew how Elena was going to come out of this alive, everything fell back into place. We lost a lot of people along the way, but the end goal was still the same. We were going to graduate, go to college, and start a family of our own. We were going to have a good life, even if it meant giving Klaus blood every now and then. It was something we were willing to do if it kept us safe.

There was no way to know what he might do to future generations of doppelgängers, however, and that was something I couldn't risk.

I knew where to look for Damon, especially if the night had gone as I imagined it had. He didn't like being taken out of the equation, especially by force, so whatever had happened had him pissed off and drinking.

Then again, just about anything had him drinking. It was the easiest way to curb the cravings.

Standing just where I knew he would be, drinking a glass of bourbon and standing next to the large fire, was in fact Damon Salvatore. He had shed the jacket and bow tie he wore tonight, with his white shirt untucked from the suit pants he wore, but he hadn't completely changed clothes yet.

"I expected you to lock yourself in your room for a few days, not wanna talk to anyone after tonight."

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, allowing the warmth of the room to embrace me one last time. Vampires didn't get hot or cold, not like humans did, but they still kept the house comfortable for everyone. It was one thing I had always loved about being here.

"Damon, you know I wouldn't be asking if I wasn't desperate," I began, not really sure how to start everything that needed to be said. "I need to get out of town."

"That would probably be best, at least until we can deal with this Original brother who lied to all of us," he agreed, and he turned back away from the fire to look at me, allowing the rage in his eyes to show. It matched the fire behind him, and that scared the hell out of me.

"Don't hurt him!" I exclaimed, and I stepped down into the living room, putting myself closer to Damon. "Please."

He snorted. "He's an Original vampire, Darcy! They can't be trusted! Why are you defending him after he lied to you?"

"I was the one who let them all out of the coffins!" I managed to yell back at him, despite the fear I could feel churning inside of me. It would've been easy to write off as pregnancy related, and maybe part of it was. Fear was definitely there, fear for _Kol_. If him mother wasn't back and set on killing all of her children, I wouldn't have worried much about him, but she _was_. "I know who he is! I knew from the beginning! Please, don't. Just don't hurt him. I love him."

His jaw locked, his eyes darkening as they pierced through me, or at least tried. "You love the man he wanted you to see."

I scoffed. "I've been around vampires long enough to see past their games! Don't you think I know who he is? I told him I was leaving town, and he cried, Damon. Don't you dare tell me that I don't know him! You've barely spoken to him at all!"

"Why would you lie to us?" he demanded, and for the first time since everyone realized who Kol was, the anger was finally directed towards the right person— _me_. "To your sister?"

"Because I knew this was how you would all react!" I exclaimed. "I knew that you guys wouldn't trust him, and I do! I know he would never do anything to hurt me! I knew that if I told you who he was, you would all know that I was the one who let them out, and Stefan would kill me! He already told me that Kol's death would be my punishment for what I had done. Please, Damon. Whatever you guys are doing to kill them, please. I am begging you. Don't hurt Kol."

The muscles in his jaw loosened, ever so slightly, and he swallowed visibly, those eyes never moving off of me. "It's too late."

"What?" My eyebrows furrowed around the same time my breaths began quickening, coming out faster than I could try and control them. "What do you mean too late?"

"Even if I wanted to save him, which I don't, it's too late," he said again. "What's done is done."

There was the smallest bit of relief hearing that he wasn't dead yet, but the fear wasn't gone. He wasn't dead _yet_ , but who was to say he wouldn't be tomorrow? How could I just walk away without making a final stand to protect him?

I could do it for my child, for _our_ child. I had to do it for our child.

I shook my head again. "No. What's going on?"

"I can't tell you," he said, and he finished the drink inside of his cup. "You'll tell him, and that will ruin everything."

"Yeah, so he can stop it!" I insisted. "Whatever you guys are doing, it's not right! Kol didn't do anything! I'm the reason you guys didn't know! He lied to protect me from Stefan! Everything he's ever done since coming out of that coffin has all been for me! Don't you get it?"

"Don't _you_?" he snapped. "Elijah is a man of his word, yet when we needed him to rip out Klaus' heart, he didn't! They will always put family before everything else!"

"He is not Elijah," I reminded him, still shaking my head. "He doesn't care about family, not anymore."

"Yeah, Elijah said that, too," he said. "Said that he wanted his brother dead for what he had done to his family."

There were so many different arguments I could've put up, so many different stories I had to tell that proved to Damon that Kol wasn't the same as Elijah. Family didn't matter to him the same way.

There wasn't time, however. The more time I spent arguing with Damon, the more time that gave someone—Kol specifically—to find me and stop me. I didn't imagine he would look for me here immediately after finding me, but maybe he would've. Maybe he wouldn't have cared what happened if he came here after everyone found out, not knowing that I had told them truth, finally.

It felt good to not have that secret anymore, even in the midst of all the chaos and bad going on. We didn't have to pretend anymore. Kol could just be who he was.

"I don't have time for this," I said, and I folded my arms over my chest. "I have to get out of town."

Damon disappeared without another word, but I knew he was going to get something. He wasn't the type to just vanish instead of saying goodbyes that he didn't want to say, so maybe he knew why I had to stop by.

If I was gonna hide, from everyone, the best way to do so was to do so with something untraceable—like enough cash to live off of until things were safe again—and the Salvatore brothers definitely had money over the years. Some was probably the family fund whereas other bits of it was acquired various ways, some of which I probably didn't wanna know about.

When he reappeared, he had a black duffel bag in his hand, zipped up and rather heavy. It was full, with the sides of the duffel bag sticking out in way they only did if there wasn't room to put anything else inside.

All it took was a small peek inside the zipper to have the fears confirmed. This bag was loaded with cash, and not just a bunch of different bills. From what I saw, it was stacks of twenties and hundreds.

I shook my head, trying to set my jaw so that I looked more firm than usual. "I can't take all of this."

"Trust me, Darcy," he said, but his voice was gentle now, all traces of anger gone from his face as he handed it over to me. "It's nothing. Just bring back whatever you don't use."

"Okay." The very idea of having this much money in my possession was horrifying, but it wasn't like some petty thief could take it from me. If nothing else, I could just inflict pain on them, or use the telekinetic spell to knock them over and get my bag back.

Somehow, I had to protect this child and _not_ trigger my curse. What would happen to this child if I had to turn at the full moon?

There was probably some way that werewolves had children. Surely over the years that they had been around, longer than even the Original family, there had been a female werewolf who had triggered her curse while pregnant. Maybe something changed and they didn't turn until the baby was out of them, or maybe their bodies turned and protected the child?

I didn't know how that might happen. From what Tyler explained the change was like, everything inside of you is torn apart and broken to become something else. That would include a child.

"There's also a piece of paper with a name and address inside, a place you can go to get new identification," he said. "Give him my name, and he'll help you out. Take the Buick, too. No one here knows the car, and I won't tell them."

I nodded. "Will do."

"Be safe." He stepped closer to me and wrapped his arms around me, giving me a hug that both hurt and gave me the comfort I so desperately needed right now. They were going to be upset with me, probably angry as well, but this was just the proof I needed that one day, they would forgive me for lying. They would be able to move past it and maybe even accept Kol—assuming they didn't kill him first. "Don't do anything stupid."

I took a deep breath and pulled myself out of his grip, one hand falling towards the pockets of the sweats that I wore. "I wrote this letter for you. It explains where I'm going, why I'm going, but whatever you do, you can't tell anyone. Elena's note explained it to her as well, and Jeremy and Alaric's, but if you're going to read it, you have to stay on vervain."

"I drink it twice a day now," he informed me, and he almost smiled. "I think I'll be okay."

"No one else can know," I said. "Not Stefan. Not Caroline. Not Bonnie. No one. When you read the letter, burn it or put it somewhere that no one can find it, at least not for a long time."

"Got it."

I turned away from him, away from the warmth of the fire, and headed towards the door. Every part of me told me to go, to not look back so I could get out of town and somewhere safe for both the child and me.

There was something else I had to say, though, one final attempt to protect the man that I loved, the father of my child.

"Damon, please protect Kol," I whispered, and I watched his face attempt to grow angry, though pain was all I could see. "If for no other reason, do it for me."

"All I can promise is that I will try," he said. "Something has happened, something that I don't know if it's possible to reverse, but I'll do what I can. I promise."

"Thank you."

It would've been easy to not believe him. Damon hadn't always been the most trustworthy person, but if he made a promise to Elena and me, he was going to keep it as best he could. He loved us both, just in different ways.

I felt comfort in that, enough that I was able to get out the door and back to the Buick.

Somehow, I had to leave it all behind and not look back. Somehow, I had to put the car in drive and leave the place that held everyone and everything that I held dear behind me, watch it all disappear through my rearview mirror.

This child was that somehow.

* * *

 **A/N: Had to put a Damon/Darcy friendship scene in before she left. This chapter was originally gonna end with Darcy leaving the Gilbert house, leaving Damon and Alaric notes in different places around the house, but I couldn't do that. Had to have a Damon/Darcy friendship scene.**

 **So let's celebrate the fact that this story, as of when I'm posting this chapter, has 102 reviews, 108 followers, and 64 favorites. This has been my most successful story to date, and you have no idea how happy this makes me. All the work I've put into improving my writing, and all the work I've put into this story, has definitely paid off. Thank you guys so much! You're all awesome, and I'm so glad that you like this story. This particular story is about to come to an end, but there is more to come, at least one more part. I thought about doing a third part, a story to sort of follow Kol and Darcy's child's life in the future, but I don't think I'm gonna do it, unless you guys seriously want it, because I'm super jazzed to write my Kai/OC story I've gotten started. That, and I don't wanna drag something out unnecessarily.**

 **Enough rambling. The lyrics at the beginning are from the song _River of Tears_ by Alessia Cara.**

 **Read, review, and enjoy!**


	30. 29 Broken Glass

"The lights go out all around me.

One last candle to keep out the night,

And then the darkness surrounds me.

I know I'm alive, but it feels like I've died."

* * *

Kol couldn't remember the last time had moved, other than to breathe and fight the tears that still threatened to roll down his face away. His family didn't need to see him like this, not in the face of the danger around them.

They had no idea either. They were all so painfully oblivious to the very reason their mother had come back, believing the lie that she spent a thousand years hating them to all of the sudden want to forgive them? Kol could see why they might believe it, but he couldn't, not after being betrayed by his family like he was.

Everything Darcy had said added up. Why would she want the very thing that made Kol want to be better out of his life if she wanted them to be a family? She would want him to have that, to be a better man for both the family and the world. With Darcy around, he didn't care to hold grudges against his family. He didn't trust them, but he didn't want them all dead—except Nik, as he continuously seemed to torment Darcy and was one of the named reasons why she left.

 ** _You need to know, if you know nothing else, that I love you, Kol Mikaelson. I never imagined I could feel the way that you make me feel effortlessly, and every moment I spent with you is the best of my life. This isn't goodbye, just a see you later. One day, I'll be back, and we can figure out this eternity thing together, when I don't have to leave ever again._**

 ** _I wish I could explain to you why I have to leave, but this is something I have to do alone. If I tell you, you'll find me, and if you find me, your mother will find me. Right now, I have to get away from her and your brother._**

He had a letter, a single letter, to remember her by. There were the pictures they took on his phone, locked with a secret word that only Darcy and Kol knew to ensure that Klaus never got inside, and he had looked through them at least a hundred times as the sleepless night he had suffered through went on, but seeing that smile only made the pieces of his heart knot up, feel as if they might explode and become irreparable.

His mind had been so focused on the letter in his hand, so lost in the thoughts that had changed him in such a profound way, after only a course of a single month, that he didn't realize someone had knocked on his door. The person was someone who would at least somewhat understand the distance he had put between himself and his siblings; she knew that he had feelings for Darcy, though Kol had never told her out-loud what they were. She had asked, on more than one occasion, and she had learned from watching the two interact just what the feelings her youngest older brother felt for this doppelgänger who looked different than all the others. It was love, a kind of love she had only felt once in her life as well—and she was the girl who fell in love too easily. It was something her brothers usually condemned her for, and Kol had been one of them.

It was just something he had never experienced, and even experiencing it now, he still didn't have the answer to the question he and Darcy had posed on their very first date. Was love a strength or a weakness?

In a way, it felt like both to him. He was weaker in some ways. Every spare thought was on Darcy. He was more distracted, and there was a certain human who, if lost to him through death, had the power to absolutely destroy him, maybe even for the rest of eternity.

The strength he felt every time she told him that she believed in him, that she knew he could be a better person . . . despite the struggle he felt within himself, he had the strength to _be_ a better man. Despite the insatiable blood lust he had received that none of his siblings had, he was able to stop himself from killing anyone, aside from those two mistakes he had made that Darcy knew about now.

He hadn't _wanted_ to tell her of his failings, as he was so afraid she might see him for the monster that he was someday, but she didn't see him that way, at least not yet. She found him a man who might find redemption one day, a man who could move past the monster that he was and be better.

Rebekah stepped inside, after knocking got her nowhere, and noticed her brother staring at a piece of paper in his hands. She was curious as to what the letter said, but she respected his privacy enough to not look, to turn her gaze away from it and towards his face instead.

"Kol, what's wrong?" she asked. "Our mother is worried. You didn't come down to breakfast."

"Please just leave me alone."

Rebekah knew this was the kind of response Kol might give her; after her many heartbreaks over the years, she would always give him the same. He was very avid when he told her that he believed love was a weakness that they couldn't afford, but he had tried to be there for her through her heartbreaks anyways. It was something Rebekah had always respected him for; he had a good heart buried in there somewhere, and she wondered if maybe Darcy had found it.

"Mother said that Darcy was selfish, that she didn't want us to become a family again," Rebekah said, and when they had all sat around the dinner table, wondering amongst themselves what had Kol so upset—mentioning Darcy a time or two—their mother had spoken up about the strange doppelgänger. Elijah and Rebekah both knew better, and in a way, Klaus did as well. He hadn't spoken to her on good terms much, but she was always willing to sacrifice herself for everyone, in a way even Elena wasn't. Only Bonnie seemed to match the selflessness that she showed day after day.

No one knew about the selfish moments she allowed herself to have with Kol, but it didn't change the fact that Rebekah, Elijah, and Klaus knew something was wrong with what their mother had said. Darcy wasn't selfish like that.

"That's outrageous," Kol snapped, allowing his eyes to tear away from his letter and over towards his only sister. "Above all else, she wanted me to be happy, even if it meant being happy without her and with family."

"Why would Mother lie?" she asked, though it felt good to have her doubts confirmed, at least a little bit.

Kol knew better than to trust his siblings, but if he was going to trust any of them, Rebekah was the one to trust. She had only betrayed him once over the years, the most recent time, and while it stung, he was able to look past it for the sake of having _someone_ to confide in about the chaos around them.

"Because I don't think Mother wants us to be a family and still amongst the living."

Kol noticed the recognition flash across his sister's eyes, which widened ever so slightly, and he felt relief that he wasn't the only one who felt this way. Surely they all had their doubts, but it seemed that Rebekah had wanted to ignore her doubts, to be a family. It was all she had ever wanted.

Rebekah left after just a moment, without saying another word to Kol, and that confused him—scared him a bit as well. Tossing the letter to the side, he chased after his sister, moving as fast as his vampire speed would allow. He followed her into the den, where he found her standing next to Elijah.

Elijah noticed Kol's presence in the doorway immediately, and he gestured him over to him, wordlessly. Kol was very confused, but he walked over to his brother anyways, taking each step with caution.

Surely Rebekah hadn't given Elijah the last dagger, had she? This wasn't some elaborate setup to dagger him for leaving the ball last night, for not coming down for breakfast—for suspecting their mother's intentions were not as she said that they were.

All it took to ease his fears was for Elijah to hold up a burnt bundle of herbs. He could smell the hint of sage, mixed with ashes, and he knew in an instant what it was that Elijah had found.

Their mother had used the sage for a privacy spell, but for what? What did she need to hide?

Kol realized that he wasn't the only one who feared their mother's true intentions, which was why Rebekah had left Kol's room to find Elijah. She had her doubts, but hearing both brother's skepticism, how could she ignore it now?

"What can we do?" Rebekah whispered.

Elijah shook his head. "Not much. We will have to come up with some ideas before we do anything impetuous."

Kol rolled his eyes. "Isn't that what I do best?"

"I mean it, Kol," Elijah said, the corners of his eyes tightening a bit. "We have to act carefully."

"Fine, fine." Kol took a deep breath and shoved his hands into his front pockets, allowing his eyes to move back to the sage in his brother's hands. "Carefully it is."

Elijah's eyebrows rose. "I have to say, you are not the man who was daggered over a century ago. Who is this new Kol we're meeting?"

Kol, despite the fact that there was no joy inside of him, felt his lips curling up into a smirk, a scoff pushing out of his nose. His eyes moved away from Elijah, towards the doorway, and he hesitated. The faint sound of footsteps in the distance distracted him from whatever response he might've given, anything but the truth.

The less his siblings knew, the better, at least until he could figure all of this out. Why had Darcy left? What was so dangerous that she had to go alone?

What had their mother said to her?

Their mother was the one who stepped into the den, wearing a soft, motherly smile as her eyes moved between each of her children, landing on Kol last and remaining there.

"My son," she said, and she took a few steps across the room, to wrap her arms around his stiff body. "I worried when you did not come down to dine with us this morning. Are you alright?"

"Nothing I'd like to talk about."

She let go of him and stepped back, gesturing her hand towards the doorway she had come through. "When I heard your voice, I made us both a drink. Would you care to join me?"

"Not particularly."

"Kol." Hearing Elijah call out to him sternly, to speak to him as if he was a child, irritated Kol, but when his gaze met his brother's, he understood, at least a bit. The tightness in Elijah's eyes, the reminder of what they had previously been discussing, had the inside of him calming down, at least in the sense of taming his anger towards his brother.

Kol wondered if it was possible to break off pieces of his own teeth, a question he had never thought to ponder until that moment. His teeth were barred so tightly together that he imagined that if it was possible for him to do it to himself, he probably would have.

With a reluctant sigh, he followed his mother out of the den and through the mansion that Klaus had built. Kol was at least grateful for his own room, but he couldn't shake the emptiness he felt everywhere he went, especially the one time he dared to look out towards the large backyard.

It had been the last time he saw Darcy, the last moment he got a chance to speak with her, and he just _let her go_. He believed there would be another chance, a time after the ball where he could go stop her from running away, but even though he left in the middle of it all, he still didn't find her at home. She had already gone, with notes left behind for the people of her home to find later.

He imagined they said similar things to his own, and his curiosity almost got the better of him. Had she told them the truth? Did their letters have more to say than his own?

Out of respect for Darcy, he didn't read any other notes but instead left, off to search through the whole town for her. Finding her nowhere, not even at the Salvatores, he eventually gave up and came home, showing himself to his room—where he had remained since. It hadn't even been twenty-four hours since she left, but he couldn't shake the void. It wasn't the amount of time; it was the fact that she was gone, with no way for him to even know how to contact her or if she was safe.

There was a sitting room that his mother seemed to prefer to be in, as it had a large window that overlooked the nature around the property, and Kol briefly wondered if that was where Elijah had found the burnt sage.

Their mother wore a kind smile, and she sat down onto one of the sofas inside of the room. Two glasses, full of a pale pink champagne, sat in front of her on the table, and she patted the seat next to her.

"Sit with me, Kol," she said, and a smile that only a mother could have spread across her face like butter, melting with her expression so perfectly that Kol almost believed the warmth within it. "Tell me all about her."

HE knew this wasn't real, and the parts of him that didn't trust anyone were coming out strong. Anything he might say might give more away than he realized, and she might find some sort of clue to take Darcy down within simple words. He couldn't take that risk, even if his mother _was_ still here.

"Come on, my son," she cooed, allowing her smile to widen and her eyebrows to rise on her forehead. "This is your first love. I would very much like to hear all about her."

He snorted. "You've seen it all. You know all about it."

"Why do you look so sad?" she asked. "What has happened?"

"She broke up with me," he snapped. "Is that what you want to hear?"

"No, but it is probably what's best for the family," she said, as if the statement wasn't completely calloused to her son's truly shattered heart. "Please, son, let us toast to family."

"I'm not in the mood." He picked his champagne glass off of the table and turned to head out of the room. Elijah wanted him to talk with her, to take any suspicion away from the fact that they all knew, but he couldn't do it, not without endangering Darcy.

He wouldn't do _anything_ to do that.

He rushed downstairs towards the kitchen, moving carefully enough that he didn't spill a drop of his champagne. He didn't know why his mother was so insistent that he drink the champagne—she had been furious that he hadn't been present for the toast the night prior, where they had all drank the very same champagne she was trying to get Kol to drink now—but he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of drinking it, even if it _wasn't_ somehow part of her plan.

There was commotion in the other room, the grand entrance room where most of the ball had been held. He remembered introducing himself to all sorts of people from town, people that he didn't actually care to know or remember, but most of the night was a scattered blur, varied memories that mostly erased out of his mind when Darcy said those few words that changed everything. _"I have to do something on my own."_

He stepped into the grand entrance room and almost paled at who he saw standing inside, with her arms wrapped so tightly around Finn that it probably would've broken some other human.

It had been over nine centuries since any of them saw Sage. No one even knew she was alive, yet here she was, holding onto Finn with tears falling down both of their faces.

Kol could feel his stomach knotting up inside of him, jealousy at its finest. He had never been jealous of Finn or Sage, not in any way, but to see his brother get the chance to hold the woman he had loved for so long, who had loved _him_ for so long . . . he told himself that the two deserved it, after all they had been through, but the jealousy was raging inside of him, churning the pits of his stomach in a way that was unfamiliar.

He didn't get jealous; he had never cared enough to be jealous before, but he was now, in the face of the love that he now understood.

The sound of thick heels clinking against the hard, rounded staircase that descended down into the grand entrance room ripped Kol out of his own thoughts, reminding him that their mother was, in fact, trying to kill them all. It wasn't that he had actually forgotten, but his own bitterness of the situation made his heart harden.

She looked surprised to see Finn holding onto Sage, and that only infuriated Kol more. Seeing the _smile_ on her face, the genuine happiness for her eldest son, burned rage inside of Kol that he hadn't experienced before, not in a long time.

"What, Mother?" Kol snapped to her. "Are you not going to tell Sage to leave him, too? In the name of family and whatnot?"

Every eye in the room, which he hadn't noticed was full of everyone, turned towards Kol, some mouths falling open in surprise. He didn't care if it was rude, didn't care if their mother was upset by what he said. She had no idea the amount of pain she had caused him, simply by making the love of his life afraid of her, afraid enough that she left _alone_ , to ensure she couldn't find her.

He hadn't realized that he still had his champagne glass in his hand, but he didn't want it anymore. In a fit of rage, he turned and threw it against the far corner of the room, shattering it against the hard ground, sending bits of broken glass scattered around the room.

He didn't stick around any longer. He had been inside all day, and it wasn't accomplishing anything. Darcy wanted to be safe, and who better to protect her than the man who knew more about protection and safety than any of them? He could find the artifact that allowed them to remain hidden from locator spells, or he could help her learn a cloaking spell that he had heard tell of over the years.

First, he had to find her, and to do that, he had to have a certain witch in town do a locator spell on her now.

He knew Bonnie wouldn't have a very friendly reception to him, as he was certain she had heard who he was by now, but she was the only person he knew who could help him.

If Darcy wanted to run, that was fine. He would run with her.

* * *

 **A/N: The lyrics are from the song _Beauty From Pain_ by Superchick.**

 **These last few chapters of this story got to me, hard. I was crying like a baby when writing them because I hurt so much for Kol and Darcy. Uhh. I hope you guys feel that same pain, that I did my job well and you feel the pain of the characters. It's not that I want you guys to be sad or anything, but I wanna be a good writer.**

 **Read, review, and enjoy. :)**


	31. 30: Actions and Consequences

"It's been a day.

It's felt like an age.

Since I have seen you,

A face to face so we can say what we need to.

I know you've changed.

You don't look the same.

We all make mistakes.

These growing pains, it's just a phase we have to go through.

I've been wasting all this time

Trying to keep you off my mind,

Yeah, you off my mind, but no more."

* * *

Going to the doctor had been the best decision of my life. I wasn't sure if I wanted to, since I was trying to _hide_ from Kol, but I did, without getting any new identification first. Under the name Darcy Gilbert, I went and had my first ultrasound done, to check on the health of our baby.

It was suddenly very real. The idea of it all wasn't just an idea anymore. It was actually happening. There was a baby inside of me.

Correction: there were _two_ babies inside of me, most likely. The ultrasound nurse told me that from the looks of it, I was barely even six weeks along, which meant that the very first night Kol and I had sex was most likely the culprit of impregnating me. It made sense; we had gone for hours.

Very faintly, we could hear a heartbeat, and she said that there looked to be two gestational sacs, which could explain why the heartbeat was harder to monitor. It sounded almost like there were two heartbeats, or just one extremely irregular one.

Since going to the doctor, I had gotten far away from West Virginia, traveling further down South in hopes of blending in with society. As much as I liked to pretend that I wasn't your typical "Southern Belle," even travelling to just West Virginia showed that I was, in fact, a Southern girl, with an accent that might make me stand out amongst the crowd.

Georgia was off limits. There were ties in Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi, so I planned to stick to Alabama and Florida. For now, I found myself in probably the most rural place in Alabama I could've found, with a sign that boasted its population of less than a thousand. There were barely even gas stations, with only a single small inn for me to crash at.

I didn't plan to stay here long, but it was a good place to catch my breath, to get some travel stuff that didn't require me to throw up on the side of the interstate. Barf bags weren't ideal, but neither was stopping in the middle of crowded interstates and puking my guts out for everyone to see. Eventually, that might lead to someone remembering me, and I couldn't be remembered.

After checking myself out of my inn room, with a polite goodbye from the kind woman behind the front desk, I went to the diner she recommended I try on my way out. There weren't many places to eat around here, but she suggested I not leave town without trying it. Of course, I had to agree, as I was eating for two, possibly three, so food was a necessity.

It was everything you might expect from your stereotypical small-town diner. Waitresses dressed in modest but form fitting dresses with bright lipstick that made their shining smiles stand out even more, décor that resembled that of the drive-in days from the seventies, and the smell of greasy French fries stuck in the air, as if nothing else could take its place.

It was like it was from another time, but that was a bit endearing. I found myself strangely drawn to it, so much that I couldn't pass it up.

There was a sign that told me to seat myself, so since the place was practically empty, I sat myself in a high-backed booth.

A menu was already waiting at the table, so I began looking through, seeing what looked appealing to the ones inside of my stomach. The more I went along as a pregnant woman, the more I learned to eat carefully, to imagine each dish and see what made me nauseous.

There wasn't much that _didn't_ make me immediately want to barf, only a French toast breakfast that sounded pretty good. All pregnancy rules said that I should keep the caffeine intake to a minimum, but right now, a cold Dr. Pepper sounded amazing.

The waitress who was meant to serve me hadn't even come to my table before the door to the diner opened again, and in walked a tall, slender woman, with a beautiful face and perfect golden ringlets that fell perfectly past her shoulders.

Her eyes, which from a distance seemed to be a perfect blend of blue and green, found me in an instant, and a smile that extended past the borders of Southern hospitality pulled onto her delightfully pink lips.

She headed in my direction, and my heart began to clinch in anticipation and fear. She looked so kind, but right now, I had to be prepared for anything.

She sat down with me and settled back against the booth across from me. "Well hey there. You look lost."

My eyes remained on her, and she began shedding her coat and scarf. "That's the idea."

"How can I help?"

It was a question I never actually expected to hear, not from a complete stranger. Back in Mystic Falls, people helped out the people in town. We took care of our own, but that same courtesy wasn't usually extended out to complete strangers.

I didn't even know her name, yet she was offering to help me?

"You can't, but thanks," I said.

She laughed, which scared me more than her direct approach to me. "Sweetie, you haven't even begun to touch base with what you are, and you wanna tell me you don't need help?"

My eyebrows furrowed. "What are you talking about?"

"I've had dreams about you—and I know that sounds creepy," she said, giving me a nervous smile in return. "But I know who you are. You're the witch-werewolf-doppelgänger girl carrying the children of an Original vampire."

It felt as if she had punched me in the chest, grabbed onto my lungs and squeezed them so tightly that they couldn't actually get air inside. "W-What? How do you know that?"

"The spirits reach out to those who might cross paths with someone they need taken out," she said, and her eyebrows rose. "In this case, that would be you."

"Please." My eyes began filling with tears, my heart wrenching again. "I just want to have this baby— _these_ babies—safely."

"That's all I want for you, too," she assured me, and my eyebrows rose. "And I wanna help you understand what it means to be a siphoner. You have to keep it to yourself, though. The Gemini Coven doesn't like siphoners."

"A what?" I asked. "And who?"

She laughed again and leaned forward towards the table, folding her arms over onto the table. Something about her posture didn't seem forced or uncomfortable; as a matter of fact, it felt familiar, like she wasn't scared to be around me.

"Oh, sweetie, we have got so much to learn."

* * *

Esther had become desperate. The arrival of Sage, paired with Kol's growing distrust, had her plan falling to shambles around her, and the pregnant doppelgänger was gone. She had mastered her own locator spell centuries ago, but even that wasn't working to find the doppelgänger.

Esther couldn't understand how a _doppelgänger_ could hide from her, but she grew very desperate at the possibilities.

She was past desperate, really, and that was where Rebekah found her, scouring through the drawers in Rebekah's dresser for any traces of the last dagger. Kol was a liability, and it was only a matter of time before he shared his thoughts with his siblings, if he hadn't already done so.

There was also the more urgent matter at hand, which she knew Kol would _never_ allow her to do, no matter how selfish it was to stop her.

"Mother, what are you doing?"

Rebekah wasn't alone in the doorway of her room for more than a few wordless, panicked moments on Esther's part. She had waited until Rebekah left to come into her room, so why was she already back?

All of her brothers stood behind her, even Finn, who knew of their mother's plan to kill them all. He also knew it had failed, and he no longer cared to sacrifice himself, not now that the woman he loved was no longer lost to him. For his mother's sake, he had kept her plans to himself, and now he realized that he had been stupid to hope she would've changed her mind.

"I was making sure you were all being kind to one another," Esther finally said, when some lie came to mind. It wasn't a good one, and she knew that, but it was all she could think of at the moment.

Elijah stepped forward and pressed his lips together. "Enough of the lies, Mother. We know you want us all dead."

"Right now, there's something more urgent going on," she said, and she fixed her eyes towards each of her children. "Something that doesn't just threaten this family but the entire world if brought into it. Where is the doppelgänger?"

There were two doppelgängers, but everyone knew she wasn't referring to Elena. Elena was very much in town, threatening Kol almost daily at this point. She had refused to give Esther her blood for the traditional locator spell, since Elena was the only blood relative anyone knew that Darcy had still amongst the living.

They all knew she meant Darcy.

Before anyone could move to stop him, Kol rushed across the room and grabbed his mother by the throat, pinning her body against the wall.

"Running from _you_!" he screamed. "What the hell do you mean where is she? You scared her so much that she believed she was safer on her own!"

Kol could feel his mother using a pain infliction spell on him, but it didn't work like it usually did, didn't immobilize him like it once might've. Maybe it was the strength of his broken heart, the emotional pain burning within him so powerfully that he could overlook the physical pain with ease.

"Isn't she? Look at what you're doing to me."

"Put her down, Kol," Klaus said, using a commanding tone that only infuriated Kol more, especially coming from _Niklaus_.

Kol didn't think twice about what he was doing. With a simple bit of added pressure to his grip around her neck, he watched the life leave her eyes, the sound of her bones cracking echoing through the otherwise silent room.

He took advantage of their shock and horror and brushed past them all, heading through the rounded hall and towards the staircase.

Elijah recovered in time to chase after him, however, grabbing onto his youngest brother's arm before he could take his first step down the stairs.

"What have you done, Kol?"

Koll allowed some of his rage to show in his glare towards Elijah. "She was going to kill us all, Elijah. You know that, and she said it herself!"

"She was, but you heard her!" Elijah exclaimed. "There was something more urgent going on, a threat to our family! Whatever it is, it has to do with Darcy. Do you know where she is?"

This was it, Kol's breaking point. Up until that moment, he had been holding it all back, letting only bits of anger show here and there.

No more.

"Why does everyone keep talking about Darcy?" he yelled right into his brother's face, scaring even Elijah. "She's gone! She's not here! Do you think for a single moment that if I knew where she was, I would be here? I wouldn't! None of you give a damn about me, but I met someone who, for once, _does_! If I had a choice in the matter, that's where I'd be, but I don't know! I don't know where she is, why she left, or when she'll come back, but what I _do_ know is that our mother, who threatened her life along with all of ours, can't hurt her anymore. If you believe for one moment that Darcy would hurt any of us, you haven't been paying attention at all! Except you, Nik. I'm sure she would love to hurt you."

Kol's unbridled fury surprised them all again, and he was actually able to get away this time. Rushing down the stairs, using his vampiric speed to his full advantage this time, he was out the door and slamming it behind him in less than two seconds.

He heard the door frame crack, with the glass within the window of the door shattering to pieces at the force of the action. Klaus wouldn't like it, but Kol cared less about what Klaus thought than he ever had before.

His siblings, however, stood horrified at the top of the stairs, looking down at the shattered mess with varied expressions of horror and distress.

Klaus, known for his own fits of rage, was able to recover much faster than the rest of his siblings, who didn't seem to have any words to say. "Well, something must be done about him."

"He's hurt," Rebekah snapped. "Leave him alone, Nik."

Elijah, as much as he hated to admit it, was on Klaus' side about this one, the revulsion of watching his brother snap his mother's neck still fresh in his memory. "Who has the last dagger?"

Rebekah scoffed. "You can't be serious. We can't dagger him."

"We absolutely will not dagger him!" Finn exclaimed. "If we do, we're no better than Niklaus."

"He just murdered our mother," Klaus pointed out, knowing that Finn absolutely doted on their mother more than any of her other children. "What choice do we have?"

"She was going to kill us all," Rebekah said. "He did what we were all too afraid to do, and isn't that rich? The pot calling the kettle black."

They didn't agree on what to do, but there was nothing more that any of them _could_ do. Rebekah didn't know that the dagger wasn't safely stored away within the hidden panel in her closet. She didn't know that Kol had snuck into her room days ago to remove it, to place the final dagger out of his reach somewhere that Klaus could never find them.

He made sure to protect himself, for situations just like the one he found himself in. Without Darcy around, he was finding himself slipping into madness, back into the sanity that was his life before her, and he was scared to go back there.

Would he be able to stop himself from taking lives without her? Could he be a better man if she wasn't around?

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry I didn't post yesterday! I completely forgot to post a chapter, but here it is!**

 **The lyrics at the beginning are from the song _Give_ by You Me at Six. I love it so much. It's probably one of my favorites off their newest album.**

 **Read, review, and enjoy! Only the epilogue remains. :)**


	32. E: Torture

"You and me were like the stars.  
We were lighting up the dark.  
One minute you were in it, the next you were gone.  
I don't really get it, where did it go wrong?"

* * *

The faintest sound of blood, dripping onto the marbled floors beneath them, with chains rattling from the weak struggles of a vampire being bled dry, was all the noise that could be heard within the Mikaelson mansion.

Dark eyes remained on the vampire in question, allowing a wicked smile to form across his lonely lips. He didn't used to care much about how long he went between kisses, between sexual encounters, but it had been seventeen days since he had seen Darcy, since he had gotten a chance to kiss her deliciously plump lips. It had made him bitter, despite everything she had brought out in him telling him to be the better vampire. Lately, it was getting harder and harder, in the face of the actual attempts on his life he had faced from the people who Darcy held dear, the ones he vowed to protect for her alone.

Sparing Damon and Elena had been the hardest thing he had done, but he did it _for her_. She wouldn't like what he was doing to Damon then, but he couldn't have anymore attempts on his life, not if he was going to find her and spend forever with her.

"There we go," Kol murmured, and he walked up to stare right into Damon's eyes. "Rip your heart from your chest."

"I can't." Damon's lips twisted into a snarl, his eyes darkening much more than the light blue should've allowed. "You have me in chains."

"Not finished then." Kol took the blade in his hands and slid it down Damon's arm, slicing through the muscles and spilling more blood than he usually liked to do in these kinds of instances. When it came to draining someone of vervain, he liked to draw it out, but that was the old Kol, the one who didn't care about anything. He _did_ care, cared so much about Darcy that he was trying to get it over with as quickly as he could.

Cutting through the arm was a painful way to do it, but Damon lost a lot of blood that way, enough that Kol was already ready to try again as the wound sealed itself back up.

It was his sister's idiocy that led him here to torturing Damon in the first place. Their mother was gone, for the time anyways, but Rebekah had to dig into the Salvatore logging history. The _Salvatore_ logging history: she basically screamed to them all that she was looking for a white oak tree, that had been made from a sapling from the original white oak tree that they were all bound to, so she could destroy all traces of it.

Rebekah and Sage had managed to track it all down, to the wood that had been used to make Wickery Bridge. They were in the process of rebuilding Wickery Bridge, so they were able to burn all traces of the wood—except what the Salvatores needed to make white oak stakes, apparently.

Kol remembered that night vividly. He was drunk, stumbling out of the Grill and thinking about where Darcy might've gone—or what might've made her leave—when Damon came out of nowhere and staked him. From the way it burned him, he knew in an instant that it was white oak wood that would kill him, and he managed to get Damon off, only to be staked in the back by Elena. Elena's wasn't able to get through his shoulder blade, whereas Damon's had come dangerously close to his heart. Kol, however, had an upper hand to _both_ and fought them off.

" _I don't know how many of these you have, but if you know what's good for you lot, you'll bring them all to me by morning. And come alone, or I'll kill you for good measure."_

He shuddered to think of what Darcy might think of him if she saw what he was doing, to her friend no less, but this was his chance to protect himself, as she had asked him to do, _and_ maybe find out more about where she was and why she left. If anyone knew, it would be Damon and Elena.

Kol knelt down in front of Damon and gave him a pleasant smile. "Sorry, mate. It's nothing personal. You're just on vervain and all, and I have some questions that need honest answers. I'm sure you understand."

Damon's teeth ground together, his eyes locked within Kol's. "I don't care about Klaus anymore. I will kill you."

"I'm sure you will." Kol smirked. "You fancy Elena, right? So why don't you tell me something Elena doesn't know about you, something that might make her hate you if she ever did?"

Damon knew the response to his only answer wasn't going to be pleasant, but it was the only thing he knew that might make Elena hate him, the only thing she didn't already know about him.

His jaw clenched. "I slept with her sister."

Darcy had mentioned that she slept with a vampire once, that she had lost her virginity to someone she trusted but didn't really care about in an intimate way, and Kol had never pressed for answers. He didn't really care to know, but hearing that it was _Damon_ who had had Darcy, who had touched her and held her in a way that Kol burned to do again, enraged him. It burned jealousy deep within the pits of his gut that couldn't even begin to compare to any other emotion he was currently feeling.

He allowed some of that rage to come out and stabbed Damon through the shoulder, this time leaving the blade inside of him so he couldn't just heal himself better in an instant.

Damon groaned. "What? Can you blame me?"

"If you know what's best for you, Damon, shut your damn mouth right now," Kol spat though his clenched teeth, but he was struggling to see past the red, past the green. All he could see were images of himself ripping Damon's heart from his chest.

 _Darcy would never forgive you if you did that_.

It was the only way Kol was able to pull himself away from Damon, to turn himself away so that he could attempt to stifle his rage.

"Oh come on," Damon snorted. "We all know you don't care about her, not really. It was all some sick, elaborate lie for your own amusement."

Kol knew that arguing with him about the matter was senseless, so instead, he turned back towards Damon and stared him right in the eyes. "Where is she?"

"I don't know," Damon confessed. "She didn't tell any of us where she was going, not even Elena. She probably knew this would happen."

Kol's eyebrows furrowed. "So she just left? Didn't tell anyone where she was going or why?"

"She just left," Damon said.

He noticed the way Damon worded that carefully. Of course he knew that people had found creative loopholes to resist certain aspects of compulsion over the years, but Damon's was far from creative, or subtle.

Kol stood in front of him, locking his gaze. "Why did she leave?"

Damon and Kol were no longer alone, and Klaus made sure to announce himself well. Throwing open the door to the empty room that Kol had turned into a makeshift torture chamber, Klaus stepped inside, with Stefan Salvatore following directly behind him. Stefan had a good impassive face, but Kol noticed the rage burning in his eyes, at the sight of his brother's pain and blood scattered about on the tarp Kol had thought to put down on the floor. Klaus would've been angry if he hadn't, and Kol was at least trying to keep things tame. Klaus couldn't hurt him anymore, but that didn't mean Kol wanted to provoke anger or violence. Any time spent arguing was time away from finding Darcy, from finding a way to make her immortal whenever she did come back to him.

That was one comfort that Kol had to get him through each day. She _would_ come back to him.

Stefan had a stake in each hand, stakes that closely resembled the white oak stakes that Elena and Damon had used on him previously. Kol was cautious to believe that these were actually the stakes, but they _looked_ like white oak wood.

Kol turned back to Damon and stared into his eyes again. "Are there only two remaining stakes?"

Damon's teeth clenched. "No. There are three."

"If all stakes aren't brought to me, if any of the stakes brought to me aren't, in fact, the stakes made from the white oak tree, I want you to kill your brother."

"They're white oak stakes!" Stefan exclaimed. "Would you like to come over here so I can demonstrate?"

"There are two stakes in your hand, and Damon, who can now be compelled, has informed me that there are three," Kol snapped.

Stefan sighed. "We're working on finding the third one."

Kol smirked at him, allowing the darker sides of him to come out. "Work harder."

"Why?" Stefan asked, with a tone that was almost mocking him. "Don't want Elena to find it?"

Kol rolled his eyes. "If I was scared of Elena Gilbert, I wouldn't still be here."

"You probably should be," Stefan said. "You underestimate how much she values her sister."

Everyone knew what Stefan said would enrage Kol, and Klaus only watched his brother's fury burn out of him with a huge smile on his face. Though he didn't think that love was a weakness his family could afford, especially in a time like this, he rather enjoyed seeing the darker side of his brother again.

"Bring the last stake, or I will make sure you all regret it, even if it means hunting down Darcy and dragging her back to town myself."

The chains began to rattle behind Kol, and a dark smile twisted his face. He turned back towards an enraged Damon, who struggled against his restraints, despite his severely weakened state.

"Don't touch her!" he growled. "Leave Darcy alone!"

Kol allowed his dark smile to grow smug, to twist into a smirk that Darcy had called his most annoying charm. "You have absolutely no power over me. I will do whatever I want with her."

He knew that if he stayed around tormenting Damon more, he might not allow Stefan to take him. He hadn't gotten the answers he wanted, but with his brother back home, he wasn't willing to risk Darcy's safety that way. She had mentioned being afraid of his mother _and_ Klaus, so if she was running from his brother, he wasn't going to allow his brother to find her.

Klaus grabbed Kol's arm, before he could get past him through the doorway, and a dark smirk lingered on Klaus' lips, one that told the story of a threat that Kol had no interest in hearing. "While I love this side of you, I must warn you about what will happen if you turn her."

"Fuck off."

There wasn't much more of this that Kol could take in that moment, not without doing something he couldn't undo. Darcy wouldn't like what he had done to Damon, but it _was_ forgivable. If he killed him, or even Stefan, Darcy might never forgive him for that.

He was up in his room as fast as his legs could carry him there, walking into the bathroom to get the blood off of his hands, and he found himself staring at his dark reflection in his mirror. The dim lighting above him only cast a shadow over his face that was an old friend, someone he hadn't seen in many years—more than a century.

It wasn't a friend he wanted to meet again, and he found himself punching his fists into his mirror, shattering all corners of the mirror on impact. He didn't stop there. He continued punching the glass, breaking off every tiny piece of it, until there was nothing but bare bone left on his knuckles, ripping through both skin and muscle to get there.

He knew it would heal back in just a few moments, but for that brief moment, he wanted to feel the pain, the raw agony that might get his mind off the pain inside of his heart.

 _Darcy, why did you have to say goodbye?_

* * *

 **A/N: The lyrics are from the song _Delete_ by Story Untold.**

 **So this is the official end of Flicker! I'm working on chapter seven of part two, which will be called You and Me, and I'm going to post it immediately. I'm only going to post the prologue, however, and then I'm going to wait a few days to try and get a few more chapters ahead, just to have chapters to post in case life gets in the way. I try to write one chapter a day for this story at least, but sometimes that just doesn't happen. I'd hate to leave you guys waiting too long!**

 **Right now what's getting me behind is this Kai story I'm working on. It's a lot of fun to do. It's my first ever Kai story. This wasn't my first ever Kol story, but it's the best one I've done to date, I believe, and it has the best writing of them all.**

 **Enough of that. Thank you guys so much for reading my story! This has had the best response of any story I've ever written, which makes me smile. The hard work I've put into trying to better my writing has paid off! I know I've still got things to learn and ways to improve, but you guys reading this story, commenting, and loving it like you all seem to do makes me smile. So thank you guys so much! :)**

 **As always, read, review, and most importantly, enjoy!**

 **EDIT: The sequel is up! Go look for it on my page. :)**


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